Vista - why can't I open any of the preloaded Windows programs (DEP?)

Ok I am super frustrated with this. I cannot not open any of window's
programs (e.g., games, rich text documents, etc). When I try I get a quick
message saying that the application/program has stopped working and it is
finding a solution and then it closes, instantly. The only things I can use
on this NEW computer are the internet and programs that it "allowed" me to
download. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I am not about to pay
Microsoft 60 bucks for technical support to fix their "buggy" product.

Thanks,

Dan

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 09:11:13 -0700, Dan
<Dan@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Ok I am super frustrated with this. I cannot not open any of window's
>programs (e.g., games, rich text documents, etc). When I try I get a quick
>message saying that the application/program has stopped working and it is
>finding a solution and then it closes, instantly. The only things I can use
>on this NEW computer are the internet and programs that it "allowed" me to
>download. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I am not about to pay
>Microsoft 60 bucks for technical support to fix their "buggy" product.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Dan

One of those could be anything kind of problems...

I would start by looking in Event Logs. These can be accessed from
Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Event Viewer. Of course you want to
pay particular attention to actual reported errors and warnings.

Just for sake of illustration... I have a stable install, Vista
Business hasn't crashed hard on me yet in about a month of use, but
that doesn't mean it hasn't wrote all kinds of 'errors' and 'warnings'
to my event logs.

For example: Vista says 6 times my CD drive generated a error. For
starters, I don't have a CD drive on my system, I do have a single DVD
burner/reader. I guess Vista means this. ;-)

Anyway the error is: "The device, \Device\CdRom0, has a bad block".
Well that makes sense since in converting my extensive music
collection from CD to MP3 one disc out of a stack of almost a 100
wouldn't copy. So while this "error" didn't effect how Vista runs, it
none the less documented that something "bad" had happened and
multiple times. Since the log records the date and time, this jarred
my memory and I recall the event. This is the kind of detective work
you may have to do in order to try to get to the bottom of what your
problem may be.

Now lets look at another kind of error. Vista says on 2/5
"Unable to remove Windows Search Service indexed data for user
'MAIN\Administrator' in response to user profile deletion. Error code
0x80070422. The service cannot be started, either because it is
disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it."

Wow, that's a mouthful, and no, I'm not sure what Vista is trying to
say. The good news is for many "errors" there is an embedded link you
can click on and the error will get send to some Microsoft server and
sometimes you will get taken to a web page that explains it further,
most times not however. At least you get a clue, which is the point.

On 2/6 another more serious error was recorded in the error log:

"{Registry Hive Recovered} Registry hive (file):
'\??\C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat' was
corrupted and it has been recovered. Some data might have been lost."

Oops, I don't remember, but whatever happended Vista fixed itself
which it does seem more capable of doing then it was in XP.