After switching to Windows 2000 Professiional from XP, I've been having some very strange problems and I'm wondering if somebody can help me.

First sometimes, immediatly after the computer has been turned on, I get the message.

Quote:

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svchost.exe- Application Error

The exception Privileged instruction (0xC000096) occured in the application Ox0052P803

Click on OK to terminate the program
Click on Cancel to debug the program

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Whatever I click, there opens a huge Visual C++ window where there's a whole lot of programming language.

Now after this error message comes, I can't do the following.

1. Open any Excel worksheet
2. Click on any program on the Internet which uses Javascript
3. Office Assistant does not show

I have installed Adobe Photoshop and Visual Studio before these happened. I simply cannot understand it. It's very frustrating and annoying. Please, could someone kindly help me ?

Do you have a virus protection or firewall installed, if so check the settings. If they are set at maximum they will stop the programmes you describe loading. (Excel Macro's are specifically blocked)

No, shocking as it may seem, I don't have any firewall or virus protection installed. The problem has lessened a bit, but when it does happen, I get really annoyed.

Have you updated your installation with any Microsoft service packs that might be needed? Run Windows Update on the system and see what it tells you.

As an aside: Install a firewall. As well as it providing important protection for yourself, I have read an opinion on a technical forum saying that it might help with the problem you are experiencing.

It often helps to type error messages into Google. Problems can often be solved by reading FAQ sheets or by searching for posts made by others who who have experienced the same thing.

Thank you, tw, I will definitely install a firewall. But as I don't know anything about firewalls, can you recommend one or two for me ?

I have found ZoneAlarm to be good. There is a basic free version and 'ZoneAlarm Pro' that has to be paid for. Being a long-time user of the program I pay for the Pro version. Both versions of ZoneAlarm are the choice of many people.

I'd like to recommend the Sygate Personal Firewall. It's free for personal use. Like ZoneAlarm it has a Pro version that has to be paid for.
I used to have ZoneAlarm on my pc, but I found it not compatible with my FTP-server (or maybe I just haven't found the right switch to make it work ), so I switched to Sygate. How nice that it loads much faster than ZoneAlarm. Besides that, I can't see much difference between the two. If you're on dial-up, maybe you could choose the smallest in file size, so it won't take too long to download.