I'm LoLing my !@#$%^&* this topic is still alive. Even more that they refered back to an advice from Robin Keir (who IS FYI an awesome programmer) which was made in reference to SubSpace using DX v3, on win95 back in '96...GG LoL! As for continuum...sometimes it goes !@#$%^&*wad, esp. when some other program didn't close properly and is messing !@#$%^&* up. Only way to get rid of the continuum process is to restart. Or you can try the sysinternal tools, maybe one of them can assist you...doubtful though. Basically, pricktech screwed up and the error msg doesn't come on-screen only until the PC initializes shutdown and hardforce all active processses to shutdown internally.