win2k: instability where there used to be none

[smp]

I don't even know when this started. I'm pretty sure it's not hardware related, but it might be, the only thing different now is that i have a scanner.
At random times I get "Iexplore.exe has generated errors" ... the screen goes blank and then win2k comes back. It's weird and it's buggin me. I also had a crash the other day that was related to my burner (pos) that I couldn't recover from, for the first time ever I had to hard boot my win2k machine. I've been using 2000 for a while and this stuff has never happened before.

On a side note, I don't think this has anything to do with it, but after I defrag my c: drive, I do an analysis and it tells me that the drive needs to be defragged. What gives?

Thanks.

edit: I found this help file at microsoft support .. but I don't get the error when I start explorer, I get it at random times. They note that it might be caused by spyware, the only thing that might be spyware that I have on my machine is morpheus, and it happens even when morpheus isn't running. Also, I came home the other day and found that my machine was locked hard. Task manager wouldn't respond, nothing, I had to hard boot it. :|

 

[MGMorden]

I've had my Win2k install "degrade" before but not often (not like 98). I just reinstalled. Sure some will say that is the easy way out but it did fix the problem and just reinstalling and throwing my programs back on probably took less time that it would have to fix the existing installation.

 

[Psychoholic]

Uninstall and remove the scanner. See if the problem goes away.

I've never seen a hard lock that wasn't a result of a hardware/driver issue.

 

[smp]

Heh. My solution has always been to reinstall windows. I figure, it'll take more time to go about figuring it out and everything else. I have windows on a seperate partition just because of this, but like you, I haven't had to do it much with win2k. I don't like the degrading OS syndrome. I have been putting off XP, but if I reinstall I might as well try it, now that it's been worked in by everyone else
Still though, I like win2k and I don't feel like reinstalling again, it is the cop out way to do it.