[Anamandy]

Hi all, I keep getting a BSOD about once every operating time. In the event viewer its always the same thing - Microsoft Fax. In the event viewer it says,

'Fax Serviice failed to intitialize (virtual or TAPI). No faxes can be sent or received until a device is installed."

I don't use this computer for printing or faxes. I only use for light duty - internet and emails primarily. I don't even watch movies on this machine. Anyone have any idea what is going on. I'm running XP sp3

[fdalbor]

Sounds like you accidently set your system to send or receive fax's at boot up time and you don't have a printer setup to receive or send fax's so the system is returning an error code. fdalbor

[Anamandy]

Originally Posted by fdalbor

Sounds like you accidently set your system to send or receive fax's at boot up time and you don't have a printer setup to receive or send fax's so the system is returning an error code. fdalbor

As a last resort I did a factory restore and have been good until tonight. Again, it shows the same problem - Microsoft Fax and Print. I don't ever remember setting my mini to send or receive faxes or print. To be honest I would not even know what to look for in start up using MSCONFIG. Would you, or anyone, know how I can correct this issue. Thanks for any help you can give.

[mudkipz]

Start -> Run. Services.msc. Find the fax service. Stop it. Disable it.

[Anamandy]

Originally Posted by mudkipz

Start -> Run. Services.msc. Find the fax service. Stop it. Disable it.

Thanks so much. I just did it and will keep my fingers crossed that this works. I also see the red error in system for Print. Hmmm - don't know why I missed this. Should I disable this too?

I only see Print Spooler. Should I disable this?

Also, when opening Dr. Watson I can't access the dmp. files. I click on browse, open dmp.files and nothing happens. Any idea how to access the files so I can be sure that fax and print are the problem? Thanks for any help you can give.

[mudkipz]

The print spooler shouldn't be causing this issue. If you've dug out the event viewer and can see the print error, would you mind posting some more details?

To read the dmp files, you'll need the debugging tools for windows.

Also, if you've anything in control panel -> printers, remove it and reboot.

[rrfranczak3]

have you bothered to run an AV check?...sometimes a BSOD is caused by a virus