Vista - Cannot open any program, blue screens and system restore issues

OK, i am having very strange probs with vista (32and 64bit, builds up to
vista RC2)
First time i installed vista 4 months ago, i had not 1 problem with vista,
everything worked fine..i had it setup on a 2nd partition on my master HD,
1st partition was Win xp. due to none of my games working at the time i
uninstalled the first working vista i had using win xp cd, the using recovery
to FIXMBR, then after i reformatted that partition.

2 weeks ago i thought I’d give it a try again since there had been a few
more builds..
but after 2 weeks of about 10 installs of vista 64 and 32 RC2, i am still
getting the same problems, i have tried installing it on the same partition
as i did the first ever time i installed vista.. and on a brand new 2nd
HD..still the same

this is what happened on my latest install..
(your notice i reset allot, this is because iv only get these from after a
restart so trying to pin point it)

Installed vista with no probs...booted up and all looks good, so first thing
i did was make a restore point..restart vista.. on boot i opened IE7 and used
for 5 mins, then i opened WMP11... restart...when it booted i got this error:

Windows could not start the windows defender service on local computer.
Error 0x80096010: the digital signature of the object did not verify.

so i reset and got a blue screen with STOP C000021a..so i shutdown pc,
reboot, and had the same windows defender message come up..also a message
saying' Sidebar.exe has stopped working', so i disabled them both..and when i
open IE7 all i would get is a blank page..installed firefox and works fine,
IE7 does not ..
then after another reboot, i got 'explorer has stopped working', clicked
restart program. then after every program i tried to open crashed explorer
again..so i reset and all seemed to be ok, but i had sidebar and defender
disabled, so i tried to do a system restore by going >system>system
protection>, but every time i got a message saying

'there was an unexpected error in the property page:
the given XML document is invalid, please close the property page and try
again'

i then booted in safe more thinking i could do a system restore i n safe
mode, clicked the backup & restore icon the start menu, of cause nothing
loaded because you can’t do a system restore in safe mode 'DUH'
then i booted back into normal vista..tried the restore again and got the
same error message as before but this time after i click the 'OK' button on
the system properties window, it said 'the volume shadow copy service used by
the system restore services is not working.'..a few reboots and still same
error message, i tried doing into services.msc and disable then re-enable it.
showed no errors, but then back to restore and the same error still came up..

now this is where the main problems happens
after i rebooted, i tried to open a program from my desktop (WMP11) and
nothing would happen, i right click it to try to go to open, but at the top
in the menu it just says 'pin to start menu' i have no open command, then i
notice it is the same for all my start menu and desktop shortcuts, i can’t
open anything,
then i rebooted and each time i got a blue screen with the 'STOP C000021a'
error, so i went into my bios and turned off my USB controller, booted and it
loaded ok (only device that is used via USB is my 'WD External HD 250GB USB')
I’m am now at this point posting from vista. the only programs i can open is
firefox via the start menu icon pinned at the top, all other shortcuts and
even the .exe file will not open firefox.
i cannot get anything else to run, when i go to the location folder of the
program and right click it i have no open option, all i can do is browse my
files via 'my computer' open control panel and open everything there.

this has happened on a good few installs, the other problem i would get was
from shortcut.lnk files not opening anything things, with this prob i could
run the program from the folder location (problem poster here)
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/com...=en-us&m=1&p=1

like i said, the very first time i installed vista (beta 2) i had no
problems after a good few weeks of use, now im getting probs after 2-4
reboots after install:-(
the only new hardware i got since i uninstalled my first vista version (1
that worked) is my 2nd WD external 250 USB HD (first vista install i only had
1 of these usb HD's, with this install of vista, my 2nd usb HD was not
connected, i did connect it on the reboot before I had the 3 blue screen
'STOP C000021a' messages)' strange that after i disabled my usb controller
after the blue screens, that it booted ok, but I’m that USB HD can’t be
messing windows up surely.

Can anyone please help, its driving me nuts.. my pc passed everything in the
'Vista upgrade adviser test'

AMD 64bit 3200+
Abit AV8 mobo
Geforce 7600GT
1x 80GB Western Digital HD, 1X 250GB Wester Digital HD, 2x External 250GB
Wester Digital USB HD
4x 512MB corsair pc3200 400Mhz RAM (2GB)
Emprex 16x DVD/CD RW
350w PSU

"upset" <upset@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5D3A3BC3-8584-4B35-A9CA-0424F011DB82@microsoft.com...
> the only new hardware i got since i uninstalled my first vista
> version (1
> that worked) is my 2nd WD external 250 USB HD (first vista install i
> only had
> 1 of these usb HD's, with this install of vista, my 2nd usb HD was
> not
> connected, i did connect it on the reboot before I had the 3 blue
> screen
> 'STOP C000021a' messages)' strange that after i disabled my usb
> controller
> after the blue screens, that it booted ok, but I’m that USB HD
> can’t be
> messing windows up surely.


Try unplugging all unnecessary USB devices and install. I have several
USB devices and Vista finds and installs drivers for them properly
when installing Vista. But I have heard of USB issues when installing.

Also make sure your hardware is still completely stable by running
Prime95 on your computer overnight. It will put your computer through
heavy CPU and memory work and will help indicate if you have a
borderline issue. Vista is very finicky about stability and it's
possible your system isn't quite as stable as it was 4 months ago.

http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

Run the torture test overnight.

OK i used prime95 and done the Torture test over night (clicked the blend
test option)
this was done on my XP os (partition 1)

after 9 hours it said

Torture Test ran 9 hours 32 minutes - 0 errors, 0 warnings

so no probs there, i can use XP with not 1 problem, thinking about it i cant
remember the last time i had a problem with my PC and XP...

il try another install with all USB off, see what happens.

"Bill" wrote:

> "upset" <upset@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:5D3A3BC3-8584-4B35-A9CA-0424F011DB82@microsoft.com...
> > the only new hardware i got since i uninstalled my first vista
> > version (1
> > that worked) is my 2nd WD external 250 USB HD (first vista install i
> > only had
> > 1 of these usb HD's, with this install of vista, my 2nd usb HD was
> > not
> > connected, i did connect it on the reboot before I had the 3 blue
> > screen
> > 'STOP C000021a' messages)' strange that after i disabled my usb
> > controller
> > after the blue screens, that it booted ok, but I’m that USB HD
> > can’t be
> > messing windows up surely.
>
>
> Try unplugging all unnecessary USB devices and install. I have several
> USB devices and Vista finds and installs drivers for them properly
> when installing Vista. But I have heard of USB issues when installing.
>
> Also make sure your hardware is still completely stable by running
> Prime95 on your computer overnight. It will put your computer through
> heavy CPU and memory work and will help indicate if you have a
> borderline issue. Vista is very finicky about stability and it's
> possible your system isn't quite as stable as it was 4 months ago.
>
> http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm
>
> Run the torture test overnight.
>
>

ok, i installed the 64-bit version
all seems ok, when i booted, i was able to play games, run all the programs,
the only error i had was with system restore, when i clicked the create
button, picked a name, it came up with a error message... but everything else
seems ok...so i enabled my usb controller and pluged in my USB HD, all
installed, i reset, then when it booted i got the' windows defender failed to
start' message, i reset, on boot got a blue screen with stop c000021a, reset
it all booted, and i got the defender error again, reset and error again, so
i reset and unplugged my USB hd, and it booted with no error 3 times, i can
still run all programs like IE and WMP. i reset again pluged my usb HD in,
and it booted ok , this time with no error.. can a USB HD effect windows
defender? and i notice these blue screens on boot mainly happened after i
reset from getting the windows defender error.. strange
any ideas anyone?