Politeness on opening windows XP

Hi: First off I am brand new to the forum and this is my first post so if I do something wrong or my etiquette is not correct please let me know. This year I want to learn some more new things and would like to start with the very polite "We apologize for the inconvenience but Windows was unable to open. . . . etc. Use last good configuration; safe mode; safe mode with networking, normal etc." When I encounter that on startup on a computer do not know how to get around it. How to correct without formatting the computer if possible. Assume that it means that a windows file is corrupt or missing and so can't boot up windows. Thanks so much.

 

Thanks for your kind reply. The screen that I am talking about is in the post on opening windows xp and will not allow me to get beyond it to continue opening windows. I work on other peoples computers for a hobby/job and have encountered this full page window three or four times and each time could not go into safe mode, or use the last good configuration or do any of the things recommended to open windows. Pushing F8 would not allow me to get into Windows via safe mode either. This last time that I encountered it the owner of the computer had installed Norton 2007 on his computer without uninstalling 2006. This is not on my own computer presently and so is not an issue for me right now but trying to learn the correct way to get around it. I guess "We are sorry for the inconvenience. . . . ." is a common way for Microsoft to say hey you messed up. Kathy

 

This menu is usually resulting from a good old fashion Blue Screen of Death,which by default only flashes for half a second before rebooting the computer into the "We apologize" screen. The best thing to do with this is to restart, tap F8, and choose the option "disable automatic restart on system failure", which should let the blue screen stay up. Once you have the error, along with any filename mentioned or "0x..." codes, you can post them here for further advice. If there is no option to disable automatic restart on the F8 menu, then that means that service pack 2 was never installed on the problem computer, and your best bet is to try stuff like chkdsk (already mentioned), unplugging external hardware, etc. Best of luck!