First sign of trouble was when I was scanning something and the Canoscan software crashed (as it does often--tho after I had nstalled
a more recent driver it crashed more nasty, in that I had to restet). This however was even nastier crash, cuz when I reset Windows it hung after it got to showing the Desktop ... now ... I reset again, and a whole set of weird stuff happened ... nothing would happen when
I hit reset button. If I turned the computer off and on, sometimes
nothing would happen, and then sometimes would show a screen with two options, one being picking default settings for the HD. Once
I saw it attempt to re-install the VIA video chipset drivers! Scandisk would hang. Sometimes Scandisk reported crosslinked files, and sometimes files with too long file names.

And ... by then I thought it was all over. However it would sometimes boot ok.

Now ... things I did to correct the problem ... I removed ZoneAlarm 3, cuz running IE the Zonealarm security lockdown would show, even after I uninstalled ZoneAlarm. So I went thru the Zonealarm registry removal instructions. Afer, MSIE would be very slow, and crash, so I stripped MSIE off using Irradacator (sp?) (I'm using the Opera browser now). I reinstalled the scanner driver (an older version cuz
I'd installed the newer one very recently and was suspicious now of it). I updated the video chipset drivers just in case they were corrupted.

Now Windows crashes regularly but not every session. Sometimes it freezes.

It crashes using Opera, and I get this kinda error fatal exception:
0E 028:c000B684 VXD VMM(01)+0000A684

It crashed using the scanner, and I got this one:
0E 028:c000a4c8 VXD VMM(01)+000094c8

The common thread seems to be VXD VMM(01)

When I reset I don't get any of that real nasty stuff anymore, tho sometimes the first Scandisk will hang ... it always resets ok after that tho.

I've used Reg Cleaner this morning ... cuz I'm suspicious about the state of the registry. It'll probably crash after this, tho it hasn't yet cuz, well, it's early.