Kde-windows Digest, Vol 43, Issue 15

[postmaster+customer-opinions.net]

>
>    1. Re: Major Issue...System Crashes (S Page)
>   
>
> On 4/24/2009 4:38 PM, postmaster+customer-opinions.net wrote:
>
>>   I wish to report a major issue I've found with the KDE on Windows
>> project. I attempted top run the software on a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop
>> computer running Windows Vista SP1 and found it to run reasonably well
>> with the only major issues I found at that time being due to ktorrent
>> freezing rather than being able to begin any torrent download. When I
>> tried to reboot my computer froze within seconds post completing the
>> reboot (soon after the machine would enter a recurring loop of full
>> system crashes, automatic reboots, freezes, crashes etc)...the issue so
>> destabilised Windows that a re-install of Vista was my only way to get
>> back to a working system. This proved to be a repeatable issue and to
>> occur with, or without, SP1 installed. It made no difference if I used
>> any KDE win programme or not the mere act of installing KDE win being
>> enough to wreak havoc with my OS.
>
> That's really strange.  For what it's worth I've had various 
> incarnations of KDE 4 on my Windows XP system for a long time with no 
> ill effects.  My understanding and experience is after the KDE Windows 
> installer completes, no KDE4 program ever runs until you first start a 
> KDE program -- only then do dbus, kdeinit, kioslave etc. run.  I don't 
> have the kde-additional ("Cursors and Platform KCM Module") package 
> installed, maybe that makes KDE more intrusive.
>
> So if it's not random disk corruption, there must be some other 
> conflict, either in your path setup, some conflicting binary, etc.  
> But KDE is normally carefully segregated, so ... no idea??!
>
> You don't provide a KDE version or installer version.
>
> -- 
> =S Page

 Thanks for replying.

 I tried the project in 4.2.2 , 4.2.1 and 4.2.0 variants (I've persisted 
with KDE Win for some time in the hope that the ongoing bug fixes would 
solve my problem)...the installer I last tried was the current one from 
the downloads page..same results.. You are correct in saying that 
nothing in KDE appeared to auto-run, however, prior to the first reboot 
(the manual one before the crash reboot cycle began) I tried out a few 
of the KDE modules and the only problem I had then was ktorrent 
freezing...all seemed well immediately post install (for instance 
Konqueror ran perfectly as did other KDE modules) but it was when I then 
wanted to boot/reboot post a shut-down that all hell broke loose. I have 
to assume that either some important Vista system file is 
overwritten/damaged/removed/renamed et al in the process of KDE Win 
installation or something in KDE Win is run as part of the system boot 
process that, then, destabilises my OS (strangely the boot appears to 
finish without issue then a few seconds go by before the system 
freezes...to me this suggests that some process is being triggered after 
the rest of the boot and that that is the cause of my 
problems...unfortunately it's too quick for me to open Task Manager to 
see what is being run.)

 I tried stripping KDE Win back to a bare-bones installation but fared 
no better...it sounds as though this is yet another on the many joys of 
running Vista.

 I dual boot Kubuntu on my laptop and in that form KDE is as sweet and 
kind as could be which tends to make me think it's not a hardware 
related issue.

 My installs of Vista are from the Dell recovery partition not "vanilla" 
installations and, as a result, they do contain the mass of dubious junk 
that Dell kindly, and in their infinite wisdom, choose to add on to 
Vista. I suspect that if other Vista users are problem free my issues 
could be related to some of the additional mush added by Dell though 
even with all of that that I can spot disabled or removed (start up 
progs suitably pruned and much of it uninstalled) the problems still 
persist.

 I've brought my Vista installations back to as near "vanilla" as 
possible, save for the necessary hardware drivers, without having any 
effect on the KDE Win issue so, like you, I'm at a loss to know what is 
going wrong.

 XP doesn't play that nice with my laptop model and yet I do need to run 
some Windows programmes that won't work under Wine hence my persisting 
with Vista...the rest of the time I'm wedded to a simple, stable, almost 
entirely bug free life with Linux. KDE Win seemed to me to be a good way 
to have access to my familiar setup while using Vista but, sadly, 
Vista's issues seem to be getting in the way yet again.

D.W. Nash