I started getting this message when windows trys to shut down all of a sudden. That was after the hal.dll and ntoskernl.exe magically became corrupted. Does anyone know a way to fix it so it just shuts down when you click shut down. thanks (oh yeah I am running windows XP home) ~Temporal~
Try running the system file checker. Offhand, I can't remember where this is, but I believe that might fix the two screwed up files. The magical part really isn't magical. I'm pretty sure it culimated partially from something on the PCI bus not being happy with the current frequency, which is likely 39MHz and is close to the point where many PCI devices will start acting up.
I've had similar problems with XP in the past, especially during the late beta phase. It was corrupting system files on a regular basis. I know it wasn't my hardware, because Win2k on another partition was 100% OK. That particular problem ceased for me after I reinstalled and turned off the System Restore feature, but I wasn't able to fix it without a reinstall...
