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Out-of-Box-Experience Wizard Stops Responding or Requires Computer Restart After You Change the Computer Name

Article ID: 815917 - View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

After you complete Windows XP Setup, the Out-of-Box-Experience (OOBE) starts and takes you through registration and network setup. If you change the name of your computer and continue to the next step, Checking your internet connection, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

Your computer may stop responding, and you are forced to restart your computer.
OOBE abruptly quits, and you receive the following error message:
Windows has finished installing new devices. The software that supports your device requires that you restart your computer. You must restart your computer before the new settings will take effect.

Do you want to restart your computer now?

After you restart your computer, OOBE starts, continues from where it left off, Checking your internet connection, and then completes.

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CAUSE

This problem occurs because of the way OOBE handles completing multiple processing threads. When you change the name of your computer a new process is created to handle this request. When one of the multiple processing threads finishes its task, its finished status may be reported incorrectly to OOBE and may be interpreted as an error.

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RESOLUTION

Service pack information

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Windows XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322389

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322389/EN-US/ )

How to obtain the latest Windows XP service pack

Hotfix information

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.

If the hotfix is available for download, there is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section does not appear, contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support to obtain the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

(http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support)

Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a hotfix is not available for that language.
The English version of this fix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

   Date         Time   Version        Size     File name
   --------------------------------------------------
   26-Mar-2003  00:31  5.1.2600.1190  536,576  Msobmain.dll

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2.

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