Need w2k startup & recovery help.

[pcmech007]

I've got a win2k Pro machine that will crash sporadically - somethimes within an hour, sometimes within a month. Anyway, I've learned to live it but need to find a better method of knowing when such a crash occurs.

I've got startup & recovery to send an administrative alert when a crash occurs. My first question: Does this mean it'll just write to the event log? Or does 'administrative alert' mean something more?

My second question:
I swore there was a way to specify a file to be run when a crash occurs, but I don't see that option under Startup&Recovery. (maybe it wasn't NT/2K?). All I want to do is tell it to run a .bat file that sends out something like 'net send Admin Your Computer Has Crashed Again'.

If no one knows how to specify a file-to-be-run upon a crash, could someone tell me how to run such a .bat file when the computer reboots but before anyone logs on? (I'd rather not go the route of running the .bat file as service because I've read that I'd have to install a program like firedaemon to do this, and I don't need any more overhead).

thanks everyone!

[obenton]

Check the logs in Event Viewer (in Computer Management) and you might see where the problem is. However, if the OS crashes before it can make a log entry, you'll see nothing. Could be from overheating, overclocking, hard drive problem, lots of things.

[pcmech007]

I've been through all that and never found a fix. I can live with it though as long as I know when it does crash. That's what I'm trying to get on.

[obenton]

You might try, in the event of a crash, setting it to reboot (in Startup and Recovery options). You could run a program from the registry, whenever computer boots, that plays a tune, sends you a message, or whatever. The registry key would be HKLM/software/Microsoft/windows/currentversion/run.

[pcmech007]

thanks obenton, but that key doesn't get processed until somebody logs on...:(

[obenton]

I think it's the Run key in the current user hive that runs when someone logs on.