Specific error code 42 often means a driver issue on the computer, it seems like not so easy to resolve for many people who lacking the professional computer knowledge. So how do we do to fix error code 42 once we get this driver problem? Please continue to look at the following words.
Driver error code 42 typically indicates a problem in device drivers, like incompatible issue between two drivers, driver corrupted and outdated issue, and these annoying error messages will be reported by Device Manager to tell you about the current error problem:
“Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because there is a duplicate device already running in the system. (Code 42)”1
“Could not initialize application. Error 42 (IPM). Please contact technical support.”
What are bad consequences of error code 42?
Once getting involved in this driver problem, many features and services associated with the driver on the computer will be affected and cannot work effective as usual. Thus, many further problems will be triggered and difficult to handle, such as:
- Cannot run a specific program or enjoy a Windows feature
- Additional running errors and system errors will be caused
- Ineffective system performance
- Frequent computer freeze-up and crash
- Invalid system registry and device drivers
As we can see that repairing error code 42 is important for maintaining the computer performance as well as avoid many troublesome problems. So, let’s start to get it fixed now.
Steps to fix error code 42 on Windows system
Step 1 – restart computer system
In some case, this drive error issue is not as difficult as you think to resolve, instead, it is just temporarily caused on the computer (caused by the improper computer start-up), and you can easily troubleshoot error code 42 after restarting your PC, because the computer restart will help you to clean up all of cache memory of the system.
Step 2 – uninstall the incompatible device driver
While the error message displaying with the installation of a new device driver, it may be due to the driver is not compatible with your Windows or other device drivers. To fix error code 42 and stop the annoying error notification, you should think about removing the driver which causes this problem on the computer, through which, the driver incompatible issue will be dismissed, and other drivers will be recovered to the normal situation.
Step 3 – run Troubleshooting Wizard on problematic device
If you don’t have any new member installed and the error occurs very suddenly, please go to check the specific device (especially when you always encounter the error after trying to launch the device), and make use of the attached troubleshooting feature to try to fix the problem inside.
- Click on the Start button, select Device Manager
- Double-click on the problematic device, and you will see its properties box
- Go to the General tab, and click on Troubleshoot to activate the troubleshooting feature
- Follow the instructions of the troubleshooting wizard to analyze and fix the problem
- Restart your computer and check the error on PC
Step 4 – clean virus infection
Malicious virus is always a big trouble for computer, because it is always the biggest cause for many problems on the computer system, like sluggish system performance, computer and installed programs freeze-up, system crash, and more serious corruptions of the computer system which also includes the driver error code 42. In this case, you should run a virus scan for the whole computer system with a powerful antivirus program, once dangerous viruses and threats are found on the PC, you should remove them immediately to protect your computer from all of virus infections.
Step 5 – update your device drivers
Since the error code 42 is a problem related to the device drivers, and outdated driver is also a possible reason for this problem on computer. Therefore, if you do not update your installed drivers regularly, please open your Device Manager, and right-click on a specific driver to update it. The driver with newest version will do a great job in supporting the effective performance and running of your Windows system. And please also remember that the device drivers should be updated regularly in the daily use of computer.
Step 6 – clean registry issues to fix error code 42
The last but not least step to solve this error issue is checking and cleaning the system registry issue, system registry is also a database that closely related to the device driver, it is very necessary to ensure those registry files to be protected well from any corrupted or missing error. Unfortunately, however, system registries are easily affected or damaged by people’s incorrect operations or program’s removal. So, it is necessary to apply a professional registry error fix tool to check all of system registries, and then, utilize the advanced tool’s repairing feature to fix all of system registry problems well. Thus, you will be able to fix error code 42 which is caused by the registry issue.
If you want to avoid the computer troubles and errors as many as possible, you should update your computer system and drives regularly, this is an important step for the computer maintainance and smooth running of installed programs.
The post Tips to Fix Error Code 42 – A Driver Problem appeared first on How-to Guides to Fix Windows Errors.