windows xp - When I restart or turn off the computer all new installed programs disappear. Why?

07
2014-07
  • Mira

    When I restart or turn off the computer all new installed programs disappear as I never installed them before. What should I change in my settings, and where, so that the computer saves the programs?

    • Answers
  • techie007

    Is this your computer? If not, someone may have installed a program like Deep Freeze, or XP's SteadyState which will revert the computer to a 'clean' state after each reboot in an attempt to prevent malicious or unwanted software installed by users, without removing their right to install things.

    This is pretty common in places like computer-labs and libraries (etc.).

    From Faronics (DeepFreeze authors):

    Some other SuperUser questions to get you going:

    If you don't have the "Thaw" password for DeepFreeze it's not going to be easy (if at all possible).

  • Bon Gart

    From the way you phrase your question, I have to assume that this is your computer. I could be wrong... but why would you be asking about changing your settings, if this wasn't your computer?

    So, going on the assumption that this is indeed your computer, your existing profile could be corrupted. Granted, this scenario is typically accompanied by an error message that Windows cannot load the profile. But, you could proceed on the assumption that your profile is corrupt, and follow the instructions here at this Microsoft article for copying your information out of it. You would be creating a new profile in the process.

    It is also possible that at some point, due to using a system restore point (that's just one way though), a duplicate of your profile was created. If you can log into your computer using Safe Mode (tap F8 repeatedly immediately after it boots to bring up the Safe Mode menu), and then log in as the Administrator. Open up Windows Explorer, and browse to the directory called "Documents and Settings" on the C drive. You should see your user profile directory (it will be named whatever you named the profile). Do you see a second user profile directory with the extension ".XP"? If so, this could be the issue. Change the Explorer view to Details, examine the Modified date on both folders, and delete the newest version of your profile. This will enable you to use the old one again. This is a pretty specific circumstance, but it has happened to quite a few people.


    • Related Question

    installation - Problems while installing Windows XP
  • Questioner

    I have a big problem during the install of Windows XP. First I insert the CD and accept the contract, select the partition, copy the files and restart the computer.

    But when the installation then starts, after a few minutes, there is a problem. The screen turns blue, and a message is shown that it is posible that new software or hadware is causing problems, but I don't have an operation system and neither new hardware.

    After of this I tried to install again so I insert the CD and accept the contract. But when I select the partition, it wasn't formatted, and when I tried to format it, it was impossible. OMG!

    I waited a few minutes and tried again, and then had a change could make.

    I read that maybe the microprocessor is warming too. Could it be?


    • Related Answers
  • Matt Hanson

    Possibly an AHCI/RAID driver issue? An easy way to check would be to change the BIOS setting for the SATA mode from AHCI/RAID to legacy.

  • Troggy

    Can you provide the full verbiage of the blue screen?

    If you suspect that the CPU is overheating, you can monitor that with 3rd party utilities like http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

    You might want to check your motherboard's docs - sometimes they come included.

  • munrobasher

    Yes, it sounds like a hardware fault to me.

  • Nick Kavadias

    hardware fault, probably memory. test it with this: http://www.memtest.org/

  • GAThrawn

    I think Matt Hanson has exactly what the problem is, I ran into this a few weeks ago with an XP install on a new laptop model.

    Windows XP (even SP3) doesn't have any pre-setup drivers for SATA disk controllers in it, so setup gets to a point where I can't even find a hard disk controller and blue screens. If your machine is less than a couple of years old then you almost certainly have a SATA hard disk.

    You have two options, either do what Matt suggested and go into your BIOS and see if you can switch your disk controller into a "Legacy" or "ATA" mode.

    Or if your PC or MoBo came with a driver disk it may have a set of DOS-mode (or Windows pre-setup) drivers that you can insert when Windows setup gives you the "Press F5 to load SCSI disk drivers" prompt. Otherwise if you can find out exactly which SATA controller and version is on your motherboard, then you can probably download the Windows setup drivers from the manufacturer's website.

  • Brandon

    If failures are not occurring at the same point in the install, then it's most likely you have failing hardware in your PC as opposed to just a driver incompatibility issue.

    You're going to have to remove and replace piece by piece to find out what's going on. So if you suspect the hard drive, put another hard drive in it and see if that one works better.

    Some components can fail after they heat up to a certain point, yes. But there's no way to give you a definitive answer on what's happening based on the information you provide...