Damn you!!! BSoD

Off lately my system (PC) has been haunted by the Blue-Screen-of-Death. BSoD, which was a common site in earlier versions of the windows operating system, is usually unheard of by most XP users. Back in the time of Windows 98, you made one mistake any you were greeted by the BSoD, eject a CD while accessing its contents and you got a BSoD, press ctr+alt+del and there it was again. Even accessing certain system files caused the system to crash. BSoD basically symbolizes the untimely demise of your operating system. Perhaps the most famous instance of a BSoD covered by the media was that of Bill Gates unveiling the then-new Windows 98. The demo PC cashed with a BSoD when his assistant (who according to Wikipedia still works for MS) connected a scanner to the PC. There was a huge commotion from the crowd, and all the sheepish looking Bill Gates could say was “That must be why we are not shipping Windows 98 yet”. For those of you having difficulties picturing the situation, the video is available on u-tube. Well if the BSoD didn’t spare Bill Gates, what can I, a mere mortal do about it? Even as I type this post, I am plagued by the thought that a BSoD might appear at any instance, and if there wasn’t the auto-save feature of MS Office, I’d be alternating ctrl+s with each word I typed. Wikipedia states that a BSoD is encountered when the OS encounters a critical system error, which can cause the system to shutdown to prevent damage. It also says that they are caused by poorly written device drivers, faulty memory, corrupt registries or incompatible DLLs. What it fails to mention, is that sometimes even hardware errors like a lose hdd or graphics card, or even an incompatible RAM (I think that’s what they mean by a faulty memory). While most people might freak out at the sight of a BSoD, I have been getting these errors, from the day I bought my PC. First night, that I bought my PC, I was really excited, and when I sat down to install the OS, it just wouldn’t install. Right after the installation, I’d get a BSoD. As it turned out that the dealer had put in an incompatible RAM. A couple of months later, there it was again. This time, it was a faulty Alcohol 120% (a virtual DVD drive emulator). Then I’d keep getting it again, on n off, until recently right before I lost my HDD (as in my HDD crashed), it became a common site again. This time I suspect that it is probably an improper installation of codecs, and I think the BSoD appears probably when the thumbnails are loaded. I have reinstalled the codecs n hope the problems disappear... Nope restarted again... lemme see... Ok... uninstalled everything. Now if that doesn't solve the problem, I guess I'll have to reinstall the OS... Wooops... restarted yet again... I guess I will have to reinstall my OS.

Ciao.