CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

2.5. Solving Other Problems

In addition to the problems already discussed in this chapter, a number of other things may go wrong. In the following sections, I examine some of those problems.

2.5.1. General Protection Faults

General Protection Faults (GPFs) are OS-level errors. When applications are running, Windows prevents applications from interfering with each other by running them in their own memory space. However, some applications (and OS components) share a memory space, and these applications are mostly 16-bit applications. When a component attempts to reference memory that does not belong to it, Windows generates a GPF and attempts to prevent the improper reference by terminating the offending application.

Because this problem can affect some of the 16-bit OS components on the system, reboot after a GPF to ensure system stability. To reduce the occurrence of GPFs, reduce the number of running applications.

2.5.2. Illegal operation

An illegal operation error is similar to the GPF. In most cases, but not necessarily all, the illegal operation is a memory reference problem. When one 32-bit application attempts to reference an area of memory that belongs to another application or that it has somehow corrupted, it generates an illegal operation. When this happens, Windows treats it as a rogue or damaged application and terminates it before it can cause damage outside its own memory space.

The big difference between illegal operations and GPFs is what components are in use ...