Computer problems

[Hawkmoon]

HELP!

I'm working on a project. Computer is a Dell Inspiron running Windows 10. Once yesterday and again a few minutes ago I experienced a blue screen of death. Error message on the screen said something about "Stop Code: Page fault in nonpage area" and then something about "tripsys"

I didn't get the entire message because it flashed off the screen before I had time to write it all down.

Problem #1: what's happening? Is my computer dying, or is this a software issue?

Problem #2: I had two documents open in Word. Now they think they are still open, and locked to another user. I have made copies of both and I can continue to work, but I need to delete the "locked" copies and Windows won't allow me to do that. How can I either unlock them, or just outright delete them?

[Jim147]

Could be a virus.

I would start with a minimal restart and see what you can do. I don't do enough Microsoft these days to think of anything else without having it in front of me.

[lee n. field]

How old is the laptop? If older than, say, 5 years, run a hard disk diagnostic.  Seatools for Windows will do.  Full scan will likely take hours.  If it fails, you need a new hard disk, and nothing else you do to fix things will matter unless this is taken care of.

Right click the start button, click "powershell with admin rights".   In the command prompt box, first run "sfc /scannow".  When that finishes note if it says no problem found, problem found and fixed, or problem found but couldn't be fixed.

Then run "dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth".  Note what that reports when done.

and the usual crapware scans and cleanup stuffs.

---edit to add---

"Usual crapware scans" for me are adwcleaner, Malwarebytes Free, and (anymore) Norton Power Eraser for a boot time scan.

Ccleaner is OK for a cleanup tool and registry decrufter (though I think that's less necessary than many folks do).

[zxcvbob]

For the locked files, open File Explorer, click "View" and check the box to show hidden items.  Now see if there's a file with the same name as the document but with a '~' or '~$' in front and delete it. (I don't know if it's a hidden file or not; the show hidden files part might not be necessary)

[Hawkmoon]

How old is the laptop? If older than, say, 5 years, run a hard disk diagnostic.  Seatools for Windows will do.  Full scan will likely take hours.  If it fails, you need a new hard disk, and nothing else you do to fix things will matter unless this is taken care of.

Right click the start button, click "powershell with admin rights".   In the command prompt box, first run "sfc /scannow".  When that finishes note if it says no problem found, problem found and fixed, or problem found but couldn't be fixed.

Then run "dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth".  Note what that reports when done.

and the usual crapware scans and cleanup stuffs.

Desktop, not laptop. The computer is about eight years old (I think), but the hard drive is a 6-month old SSD drive.

Just ran sfc -- it reported that it found and fixed some corrupt files. I can't decipher the log report, so I'll just hope that does the job.

dism just reported that it was complete. No mention of errors or fixes.

Thank you. Got my fingers crossed.