I occasionally use programs originally designed to run in Japan using Microsoft AppLocale. When loading a program this way, AppLocale specifies that it's only designed to be a temporary solution and that you're supposed to specify a language for Windows to use when running non-Unicode programs.
I tried doing that a couple years back, but ran into some problems; I didn't remember the details. Last night, I decided to try again.
I opened the Control Panel, went to Language & Regional Settings, and followed the rest of the Help file's instructions. Ordinarily it would ask me to insert my copy of Windows XP in order to copy over Japanese regional settings, but apparently the files were still on my computer from the last time I'd tried, so it let me use those instead... which was fortunate, as I can't remember what I've done with my XP install discs. I let the system configure my settings for about 20 minutes, and then it asked me to reboot.
Now my computer immediately reboots any time it would open the desktop. I've tried loading into Safe Mode, loading with the last known correct settings, fiddling with my BIOS settings (although I'm leery of doing too much since I don't know exactly what will wind up burning out my motherboard)... At this point, the only thing I can think of is to use a windows boot disk to try to correct the settings, but having ransacked my apartment, my parents' house, and the house of the guys I used to live with, I can't find it anywhere. Is this something I can fix without spending money and without having those discs, or am I doomed to either buy another copy of XP/take my computer to a repair center?
In response to Redha's answer: I get the following error whether starting normally or in some flavor of Safe Mode (including w/ command prompt). "Stop: c000021a {Fatal System Error} The Windows Logon Process system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000001d (0x00000000 0x00000000). The system has been shut down." I googled that, and it does seem to be an issue mainly Japanese users encounter; however, most of the discussion seemed to revolve around running software on the desktop, like Housecall and Hijack This. Since I can't reach the command prompt, I'm not sure if there's a way to try the last things.
Update 09/18/2010: Despite buying a new hard drive and a new operating system, I haven't given up on salvaging the old one, because I really don't want to spend days tracking down a bunch of drivers for my network card and other hardware, reinstalling all my software, etc. Searching for the error again, I came across the following page:
I tried a number of proposed solutions, including response #59 from Pierre, as follows:
Hello all, and sorry for my poor english, i had the same problem with a client’s computer, here is the way i resolved that: client computer has Win xp pro with sp2, it wasn’t bootable even in safe mode. So i booted with a bartPE cd, and renamed the following files:
csrss.exe –> csrss.exeold
win32k.sys –> win32k.sysold
winlogon.exe –> winlogon.exeold
I took these files from a working computer runing Windows XP Professional SP3 (I didn’t have a SP2 >computer with me) and put them back in the bad computer. That worked perfectly, no idea why… Hope it will help some people.
I got those three files off a computer successfully running Windows XP Professional SP3; replacing them on the afflicted drive reenabled the login process, and getting to Windows no longer presents BSOD. Instead, it gives me the old Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. and gives me the option to generate an error report. Clicking the button to see what the report contains, I get the following information:
Error signature
AppName: explorer.exe AppVer: 6.0.2900.2180 ModName: kernel32.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.3541 Offset: 00009a51
Clicking the link for technical information about the error report generates an enormous page full of content. It starts with:
Exception Information
Code: 0xc000001d Flags: 0x00000000
Record: 0x0000000000000000 Address: 0x000000007c809a51
...and continues onward. I'm able to generate this error consistently, and while Explorer won't load, I can at least get into the task manager to run the command prompt and other resources. Anybody know what I should do next?
Update 09/19/2010: As mentioned in my comment on the answer below, I'd successfully completed the first half of the registry repair process that Dennis had linked to. Now that Windows was sort of loading, I reversed the instructions, restoring the original versions of SYSTEM, SECURITY, SAM, SOFTWARE, and DEFAULT in the Windows\system32\config folder; this has reenabled all my existing software and registry info, so while explorer.exe is still crashing, I am now actually updating this issue from the afflicted computer. No desktop, but Chrome's my default browser, and it successfully opened when I tried to view report details from the crash alert. So: I may not have emerged from the labyrinth quite yet, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel. All my software works if I launch it from task manager, except explorer. I can't believe I'm this close to restoring my original functionality. Thanks again for all your help, guys, and if you have any ideas of how to correct this last little bit of brokenness, I'd really appreciate it.
