[dm294]

I installed XP this week via Boot Camp on my 2.4ghz MBP. The installation went very smoothly...I created a 40gig partition, and had no problem booting to Windoze and installing my other software. The next day I began running into problems. Quite frequently, when I boot to Windows, after a couple of minutes the whole computer freezes and I have to hold the power button to shut it off. This has happened in various programs, and even when nothing but the desktop is loaded. These are the programs I installed:
Photoshop CS2
Symantec virus scan and firewall
The Sims
Brother MFC-8440 drivers
MFL-Pro Suite (Including Paperport 8.0)
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Windows Defender
Ad Aware

I'm figuring that there is probably some compatibility issue with a program I installed and Boot Camp. I previously had all of these programs on a windows machine and had no problems. As most of these are protective utilities, they start upon bootup. Does anybody know if there are any known issues with these programs, or with Boot Camp and XP Freezing in general? Please don't start a bashing session on symantec. I know it's not the best, but it is required by my school (and it was free). Thanks.

[ghporter]

When you boot into Windows, you're booting into it natively. Boot Camp as such has nothing to do with Windows at that point-it's just set things up so you could install Windows in the first place.

Now as to compatibility, Symantec's firewall will do a better job than Ad Aware at blocking ads, and it's about as easy to configure. Not that this is what's going on and causing your freezes, but it can't help matters. On the other hand, since Symantec's firewall system also looks at spyware activity, using Windows Defender at the same time is superfluous and maybe causing your problems. I'm a professional computer security paranoid, and I only use Symantec (provided for free by my school).

[dm294]

I know that these programs are probably overkill, but I'm pretty paranoid as well. However, I did have them all functioning together on my older Dell laptop, and I never had any performance problems,. I understand that windows in running natively, but boot camp is running as well. As I understand it, there are specific drivers necessary to make some of the Mac hardware run with Windows. I also noticed that in Apple's documentation for running Windows on Boot Camp, there was a notice at the bottom that said to make sure you check for compatibility on all programs with Boot Camp, as failure to do so can result in data corruption/loss. This made it sound like even though Windows is running natively, Boot Camp itself is running and may cause conflicts. If this isn't the case, I really can't understand why the machine would constantly freeze, when my other computers with the same programs run fine.

[ghporter]

The drivers are Windows drivers you install from the Boot Camp driver disc you burned-or the Leopard install disc if you have Leopard. Program compatibility has to do with the hardware and the drivers Apple provides, not Boot Camp itself, though the compatibility is referenced to Boot Camp because that's where you get the drivers from.

Since you had all of this running on another computer without problems, I'd start worrying about RAM. Maybe the RAM in your Mac is not quite perfectly seated, which is especially possible if you've upgraded the RAM. Other than that, I'm at a loss.

[dm294]

I have 4 gigs of RAM, factory installed. This is much more than I had on the Dell laptop running these programs. Also, when I boot to OS/X I am not experiencing any crashes or freezes. The problem is strictly on the windows side. Is it possible that some piece of my hardware is not compatible with the drivers that apple provides on the windows side? I checked in device manager and everything seems to be ok, but I can't really think of anything else? I mean, it either has to be the hardware, the drivers, or the software, right?

[ghporter]

In theory that's all there is. What particular Dell laptop did you have, and what sort of hardware did it have? Some Dells are built like brick outhouses (generally the business-oriented Latitude line), and will handle anything you throw at them. Others are potentially less robust-the older Inspiron series could at times be problematic, though my own I8200 is as solid as they come (just way too heavy to lug back and forth to class every day). So if we knew what hardware your Dell had, we might be able to compare that with your MBP's hardware and maybe see a pattern.

One more thing: do you get any sort of indication of a failure, or does the screen just stop updating? This is kind of important because of the criticality of the display subsystem in XP.

[dm294]

It was indeed a Latitude. A D810 to be exact. 2.13Ghz Pentium M, 399 Mhz, 1.00 GB RAM. In doing some research, it turns out that the MFL-Pro suite, including Scansoft Paperport 8.0, which came with my Brother All-in-one, has some known issues with XP Professional. After a horrendous uninstallation process, I was able to remove the program. I'll let you know how things go, but as of right now, everything seems to be functioning well. I figured that it had to be a program that loaded upon booting. The only ones that do that are this suite, the utility programs, and Adobe Cue. The MFL stuff seems like the most likely culprit. I don't know why it worked with XP Pro on the Dell, but I'll update a little later and tell you if this solved the problem. Maybe it was like you said, the Dell was a workhorse. Thanks for the input!

[dm294]

Just a quick update: It's been a couple of weeks since I uninstalled the mfl-pro suite, and I'm happy to say, No Crashes!!

[PaperNotes]

1 Get rid of the spamware (Symantic, ad blockers, etc).

2 Use Internet Explorer only on trusted sites.

3 Do not open email attachments that you are not sure of.

[dm294]

So..it worked for a few weeks..no crashes. Then, all of a sudden, everything went nuts. Within seconds of startup, the computer would freeze. This happened over and over again every time I started windows. I tried a system restore, which of course didn't work. I scanned for viruses and spyware; everything was clean. I tried booting to last good configuration; nothing. Eventually, I wiped out the partition and started fresh. (Side note: I did notice that for some reason windows only lists the computer as having 3 gigs of RAM, while I actually have 4. This was factory installed and OSX sees that there is 4 gigs, so I don't think it's an installation problem. I'm figuring this might have something to do with it though.) I reinstalled XP Pro, and for a couple of days everything worked fine again..then the crashes started again. I didn't install any programs this time. I have all the updated boot camp drivers and all of the windows updates. This isn't an occasional freeze. It's every time within seconds. Completely unusable. Is there a known issue with XP Pro and Boot Camp? Or is it possible that I just had two faulty installations? It's a brand new XP Pro disk w/ SP2. Thanks.

MacBook Pro 2.4ghz
4 GIG RAM
Leopard
XP Pro SP2
160 GIG Hdd @ 7200

[dm294]

Just a quick follow up. I also have a bluetooth apple keyboard and mouse connected, and I switch between wired and wireless internet. I don't know if these could have anything to do with it as well.

[tonto]

Go into start menu.
Open Run...
Write: msconfig
and disable KbdMgr on startup.
I also disabled ccApp which I think is an ATI graphics application, which I never use anyway.
That solved the freeze on startup for me.
Works fine now.


My config is
Apple pb pro 2.13 Ghz intel duo
Leopard and XP sp2

[seanc]

FYI, ccApp, unless i'm very mistaken, is Norton/Symantec.
Your 4gb of RAM only shows up as 3gb in XP because that's limit of RAM it can handle, so it can't see or use anything above that.

Since the above user disabled Norton from starting at startup and it fixed his problems, i'd suggest uninstalling Norton and installing AVG Free and AVG AntiSpyware.
Another recommendation is to browse the web with Firefox if you aren't doing so already.

What external peripherals do you have connected when the crashes happen? Do they still happen when you're using no peripherals?

[OrangePanda]

Hi all,

I am new to the forum and I hope this thread is still active.

Anyhow, I have the same problem dm294 has. I have a 08 Mac Pro with FAT partition running XP pro. I am running graphic card intensive software such as Maya and 3Ds Max, and RAM intensive programs such as AE and Final cut. My Mac pro comes with factory installed 4GB RAM, but my XP only recognized 2GB, i guess its the limitation of XP pro.

About half of the time, the XP side works fine, then the other half/more (lost count) the computer would freeze upon rebooting. I was able to get around this by re-starting in safe mode (usually several times), let it run disk check a couple times, and the computer would be functional again. But this is by no mean a permanent solution. I've tried tonto's suggestion of disable KbdMgr (not sure what that it), but are still having problems.

Suggestions?

btw, I also have a minor Mac questions, I started up my Mac last Sunday and noticed that the time is 8 hr. off, I checked setting and make sure that it is correct time zone? not sure what happened?

[luiz3]

Ok - I hope this one is still out there -

I have all the standard stuff in a Mac Book Pro yadda yadda
The simple facts are - is the machine runs fine under MAC OS X - then there just cant be any hardware issues. Then we come down to services/drivers etc. Now I run a gigabyte network at home and the moment the LAN on the laptop is active - whooshka - I get a freeze that I can only get out of when I reset the machine.

I cannot use the thing for too long before I get the FREEZE.

So to isolate this - I DISABLED the onboard NIC - and only use Wireless.

Currently this is working fine - I use my machine to game on so I am not keen to run on wireless forever. It does stop the freezing of Windows XP on my MacBook Pro via Bootcamp.

I offer this "workaround" and hope I find the cure soon.

Thanks,

[luiz3]

check my reply post in the forum. disable your NIC and use wireless. this will allow you to use the machine.

[paulthewall]

I had the same freezing issue - I disabled the network driver (NIC), and I have had zero problems since.

BTW - I have XP Pro running on a macbook pro 2.4

[olePigeon]

I had turn off everything listed above, plus Bluetooth and Wireless. I have to use an ethernet cable to run it in Windows, otherwise it freezes on me.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by OrangePanda 

btw, I also have a minor Mac questions, I started up my Mac last Sunday and noticed that the time is 8 hr. off, I checked setting and make sure that it is correct time zone? not sure what happened?

I just noticed that nobody had addressed this point. OS X expects the computer's hardware clock to be on Universal Time (GMT), and Windows expects it to be on Local time (whatever time zone you have selected). When you go from one OS to the other, you WILL notice that if the time was right in OS X it will be wrong in Windows, and if Windows updates the clock, when you go back to OS X the clock will be wrong in the other direction. (Only people actually in the GMT time zone get a pass on this issue.)

So it's not a "problem" per se, just something that has no real fix. Apple seem to have worked on the issue for some time but they never managed to come up with a way toreplace the Windows clock driver such that the issue went away...