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FredT · 09-28-2008, 09:52 AM

Hi,

My grandfather has a Toshiba laptop, not sure of the exact specs, but it's fairly new, I think it has 512 ram, I can get the specifics later.

Regardless, this seems more of a software problem. A while ago, he was temporarily using MSN dial-up until he got a DSL connection and whenever he opened the MSN browser to connect, the standard little Microsoft error box would show up... "MSN has encountered a problem and needs to close" and it gives you an option to send an error report.

I figured that it was probably an issue with MSN and just forgot about it because he was planning on DSL already. Now he just purchased a magicJack to make long distance calls from his computer. With it came a little program called the USB Softphone, and whenever I open it up, same error message... "USB Softphone has encountered a problem and needs to close". There is an error report but it seems to contain useless information and the text can't be selected, so I can't copy/paste anyways.

Just like the MSN software, it quits within seconds of opening. Now I'm thinking that maybe the problem is with his computer. Toshiba also installed A TON of extremely irritating little add-on applications. Whenever I try and adjust things in control panel like the power settings or the network settings, it tells me to go use the "Toshiba Power Saver Utility" or the "Toshiba InstaConnect" or other stuff like that. I'm wondering what would happen if I just installed a fresh copy of Windows on it without the pesky Toshiba apps, if that would fix the quitting problems. I'm just thinking that if MSN and MagicJack should work on any regular computer without a problem, why not just re-install Windows. Maybe even with the Toshiba software it would work after a reinstall.

What are your thoughts on this? What do you think the problem is and do you think that a reinstallation would fix it?

Thanks!

09-28-2008, 09:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
FredT Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 388 OS: Mac OS X 10.5.7 and XP SP2	Toshiba laptop quitting programs Hi, My grandfather has a Toshiba laptop, not sure of the exact specs, but it's fairly new, I think it has 512 ram, I can get the specifics later. Regardless, this seems more of a software problem. A while ago, he was temporarily using MSN dial-up until he got a DSL connection and whenever he opened the MSN browser to connect, the standard little Microsoft error box would show up... "MSN has encountered a problem and needs to close" and it gives you an option to send an error report. I figured that it was probably an issue with MSN and just forgot about it because he was planning on DSL already. Now he just purchased a magicJack to make long distance calls from his computer. With it came a little program called the USB Softphone, and whenever I open it up, same error message... "USB Softphone has encountered a problem and needs to close". There is an error report but it seems to contain useless information and the text can't be selected, so I can't copy/paste anyways. Just like the MSN software, it quits within seconds of opening. Now I'm thinking that maybe the problem is with his computer. Toshiba also installed A TON of extremely irritating little add-on applications. Whenever I try and adjust things in control panel like the power settings or the network settings, it tells me to go use the "Toshiba Power Saver Utility" or the "Toshiba InstaConnect" or other stuff like that. I'm wondering what would happen if I just installed a fresh copy of Windows on it without the pesky Toshiba apps, if that would fix the quitting problems. I'm just thinking that if MSN and MagicJack should work on any regular computer without a problem, why not just re-install Windows. Maybe even with the Toshiba software it would work after a reinstall. What are your thoughts on this? What do you think the problem is and do you think that a reinstallation would fix it? Thanks!