Over the last couple of months, Ask the Geek has gotten a spate of questions regarding XP problems that weren’t catastrophic, but which caused shutdown problems, CD ejection errors, and a myriad of other annoyances. Back in the Windows 95/98/ME days, when users would see “This program has performed an illegal operation…,” I would always scandisk/defrag first, a process that would usually fix the problem.

These days, the error messages are different, but the underlying causes aren’t: there’s usually corrupted files or severe disk fragmentation causing some problems. The first thing to suspect is corrupt or wrong versions of Windows system files, and that’s the best place to start. Fortunately, there is a built-in tool that lets you correct some of these errors: system file checker. This handy little utility verifies all of the critical system files and makes sure they are all intact.

Click Start>Run and type “sfc /scannow” (without the quotes). Click OK and you’re off and running. It may take awhile and it may ask for your Windows XP CD.

But it will often fix those annoying little errors without further headaches.

And while you’re at it, go ahead and defrag your hard drive.

Cheers!
The Geek

Have a computer problem? A question about your latest gadget? Click here to Ask the Geek! Kenny “The Geek” Harthun has been playing with geeky stuff since 1965. He’s a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer with Connective Computing, Inc. providing network, desktop and info security support services to a wide range of clients.