Error Message: “Fatal Error: Setup Cannot Continue. Please Contact Microsoft Technical Support. (Error: 3E6h)”

When upgrading Win98/Me to WinXP, you get one of the following messages:
“Fatal Error:
Setup Cannot Continue. Please Contact Microsoft Technical Support.(Error: 3E6h)”
or
“WINNT32 this program has performed an illegal operation. WINNT32 caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL”

Translation:
This message indicates that a software application or a device caused the Setup program to crash. The second message indicates that another application or program tried to access the same area of memory assigned to KERNEL32.DLL, one of the critical Windows DLL (dynamic-link library) files.

Solution:
If you have any of the following programs or hardware devices,
• System Restore Remover Pro by Definition Software
• Intuit Quickbooks
• Dell Dimension 8100
• Echo Audio sound card

Microsoft recommends that you take some actions before continuing. Remove both software programs using Add/Remove Programs.

The System Restore Remover Pro works only with WinMe, so you won’t be able to use this program with WinXP. Intuit’s Quickbooks is  compatible, but Microsoft advises that you remove the program, complete the setup process, and then reinstall it once WinXP is up and running.

If your Dell Dimension 8100 has a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card installed, browse to the C:\DELL\DRIVERS\r33637 folder and check for two installation files for the sound card’s drivers, both called Setup.exe. These files are found at C:\ DELL\DRIVERS \R33637\9x\Setup.exe and C:\DELL\DRIVERS\R33637\NT\Setup.exe; rename both programs to Setup.old.

If you have any of the Echo Audio sound cards we mentioned above, upgrade their audio driver to version 6.0 or higher. Go to www.echoaudio.com to get the files and instructions for installing them.

If the steps outlined above don’t solve the problem, perform a clean boot in Win98 or WinMe as we described above and restart the setup process. If Setup still reports the error, unplug all peripherals that are not required to start your computer and restart the setup process. Microsoft even recommends that you clean your installation CD-ROM before proceeding.

This issue brings up an important question:
Should you upgrade to WinXP on top of your Win98 or WinMe installation or should you perform a clean upgrade? The short answer is no.

Error Message: “STOP: 0x0000000A irql_not_less_or_equal.”

Error Message: “STOP: 0x0000000A irql_not_less_or_equal.”
This error message is triggered when you are upgrading your system from Windows 98/Me to WinXP.

Translation:
Hmmm . . . This one is not very descriptive at all. IRQs (interrupt request lines) are the communication channels via which your hardware devices communicate with your computer’s CPU. When a device needs the CPU’s attention, it uses an interrupt request to let the CPU know that it has data that requires handling. So it’s reasonable to suspect this error message indicates a problem with a hardware device or a device driver.

Solution: According to Microsoft, the root cause of this problem is an incompatible hardware
device or device driver. To resolve the problem, restart your computer; if the Setup program gives you the option to revert to your previous OS, take it. When your old OS (whether it’s Win98 or WinMe) restarts, uninstall any antivirus and boot manager software and “clean boot” your computer. A clean boot is a simplified boot sequence that prevents device drivers, startup programs, and other settings from loading at boot time.

To clean boot in WinMe, click Start and Run and type msconfig in the Open textbox. Click
the General tab and then click the Selective Startup checkbox. Under Selective Startup,
click the checkbox to the left of each item to deselect the item. Then, click the Startup tab, find the *StateMgr entry in the list, and click its checkbox to select it. Click OK to accept your changes and click Yes when prompted to restart your computer.

To clean boot in Win98, the steps are fairly similar. To launch the System Configuration
Utility in Win98, click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and System Information. Click Tools and then click System Configuration Utility to launch the application. Click the General tab and deselect every item under Selective Startup by clicking each checkbox. Click OK to accept your changes and then click Yes when you are prompted to restart your system.

After the computer clean boots, attempt the WinXP installation again. If the error still occurs, see the steps below. If the WinXP Setup program did not give you the option to revert to your previous OS, Microsoft advises that you remove every unnecessary piece of hardware from your system.

This includes any hardware device that you absolutely don’t need to run the computer, from
USB (Universal Serial Bus) devices to network and sound cards. If the WinXP setup is still
unsuccessful, try flashing your BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) to a new version.
Consult with your computer’s manufacturer to figure out how to do this.,