Windows Vista Keeps Freezing/Crashing

[psufootball]

Alright thank you very much!

Any ideas on what things to add back first?

[johngetter]

Ok knowing that 2 antivirus programs are running can
bogg down your computer over time more than you know it. But your specs are well and should able to handle it but i dont understand

[johngetter]

Open msconfig and on the startup tab choose "selective startup" (disable everything) and reboot. If the problem does not recur start adding items back one or two at a time, rebooting after each, until the problem recurs and you'll have identified the offending process. It's time consuming, but it should work.

You must be carefull when you disable start-up items. I disabled all start up services and it crashed and I lost 250GB of personal Data. I wouldnt disable them all. Disable the ones you know,

[killerb255]

Alright thank you very much!

Any ideas on what things to add back first?

Nope, just pick one, add it back, test, and confirm.  If it crashes your PC, then it's probably the suspect.  If not, then add another one.

[psufootball]

Ok knowing that 2 antivirus programs are running can
bogg down your computer over time more than you know it. But your specs are well and should able to handle it but i dont understand

Well now I'm only running Norton and MalwareBytes anyway, although we've pretty much established that's not the problem here.

You must be carefull when you disable start-up items. I disabled all start up services and it crashed and I lost 250GB of personal Data. I wouldnt disable them all. Disable the ones you know,

Well when I disabled all of them it did in fact slow down, and was "Not Responding" for like 30 seconds or so but then it got them all.

Nope, just pick one, add it back, test, and confirm.  If it crashes your PC, then it's probably the suspect.  If not, then add another one.

Alright well I've gotten through like 4 right now, still no crashing.  There's like 25 or so total.  Fun, fun, fun. 

So basically my goal here is to find the culprit and then uninstall or disable it.  But what if the one causing it to crash is something important like part of the OS or something, must I re-install Windows?

[killerb255]

Alright well I've gotten through like 4 right now, still no crashing.  There's like 25 or so total.  Fun, fun, fun. 

Welcome to our world.   Imagine doing this for a living!

So basically my goal here is to find the culprit and then uninstall or disable it.  But what if the one causing it to crash is something important like part of the OS or something, must I re-install Windows?

We'll cross that bridge when the time comes.

[Allan]

Ok knowing that 2 antivirus programs are running can
bogg down your computer over time more than you know it. But your specs are well and should able to handle it but i dont understand

Ignore this genius.

[Allan]

You must be carefull when you disable start-up items. I disabled all start up services and it crashed and I lost 250GB of personal Data. I wouldnt disable them all. Disable the ones you know,

Ignore this too.

[psufootball]

Alright I've found the culprit.  The full title is-

Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v4.0.30319_X86

Just to be sure I enabled everything again but disabled the .net framework one and then left it idle.  Came back and it didn't crash.  I messed around with it a few other ways to and it was always this one that was the key to whether it crashed or not.

Now the thing is... I really have no idea what it is.  I know the other day I needed to update it to run an application but I downloaded the update right from Microsoft. 

So I guess now what I'm wondering is what is it, what important functions do I use it for, and how do I fix it.

[Allan]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=what+is+.net+framework&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS312US316&ie=UTF-8&aq=0&oq=what+is+.net+

[psufootball]

Alright that's 2/3. 

Lastly, how do I fix it, must I reinstall?

[Allan]

You can uninstall Microsoft .net framework using Add/Remove. Then download and install the latest version from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa569263.aspx

[psufootball]

Alright thank you very much for your help over the past few days. 

[Allan]

You're very welcome. Stop back and let us know how things work out.

[BC_Programmer]

You can uninstall Microsoft .net framework using Add/Remove. Then download and install the latest version from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa569263.aspx

There are several versions of the .NET framework and they are all independent- that is, they are not cumulative.

there is .NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5, and .NET 4.0. These correspond to various released of Visual Studio starting with the initial release of Visual Studio .NET (Visual Studio 7) through to the most recent version, 2010.

In order to run a program compiled with Visual Studio 7, you need the .NET Framework 1.0 installed. (I think they might run with 1.10) but having version 2.0, 3.5, 4.0, etc installed doesn't let it run- you must have 1.0 or 1.1 installed.

The same applies for applications compiled to run on the other frameworks. You pretty much need the same version installed on your machine.

Windows XP came with 1.0 installed (or, at least, it came with the installer for 1.0 on the CD). Windows Vista has 2.0 pre-installed, and Windows Server 2008 comes with either 3.0 or 3.5 depending on the release date.

Of course you can install even the latest version into Windows XP. Some versions can even be installed in Windows 9x.

The way I've always tended to think of it is similar to how Java is. a Java program is compiled into an otherwise useless class file that contains what is called "java bytecode" this java bytecode is interpreted by the java runtime which emulates a virtual "java" CPU. This allows the actions of the program to be monitored every step of the way and appropriate blocks and exceptions to occur when it tries to do anything it shouldn't. With Java, when you install the Java runtime, it installs two things: the runtime "program" and plugins themselves, as well as the Java Class library, which provides the base set of functionality for all java programs.

Equally, .NET programs are compiled to something called IL (Intermediate Language). The idea is to allow the programs to be optimized based on what CPU it is running on- so if you run Program X on a Super speedy hyperthreaded machine, the CLR (the Common Language Runtime) can compile the program to optimized machine code  Specifically for that processor. The same goes for nearly any other processor- the best optimizations are performed based on the current environment. The .NET Framework installs the CLR (the actual virtual machine) as well as the .NET framework classes themselves, which provide the base functionality for .NET programs.

returning to the problem at hand, "NGEN" is the "native image generator". Therefore, my guess is that the background process detects whenever a .NET program runs and compiles it from IL to native machine code on the spot and then places it in the global assembly cache. If this is the case, it is absolutely safe to remove it from your startup list, as the function it performs is purely optional.