Hi Guys,
When I read Neemobeer's post "A 3 error is a path not found, the first thing I did was check the "Startup" folder in "All Programs." And I found a shortcut to "Natural Color Pro" a program I had previously uninstalled but the icon kept showing up in my Systems Tray.
This was a program I had downloaded a short while ago to trying improve the colour/ shade/ tint on a computer monitor. My son was getting a new one and thought I might like it because it was larger than mine. The problem with it was a persistent gray/bluish tone and lack of brightness. Being a Toshiba monitor, I visited their site and downloaded the "Natural Color Pro" app that was supposed to enhance the colours and enable their adjustment. It wasn't able to make any kind of material change in the problem. The gray/blue tinge remained no matter what. So, I told my son I more preferred the monitor I had and uninstalled "Natural Color Pro." But, its icon persisted in my system tray and I couldn't figure out how to remove except for using windows to not show it which I didn't find satisfactory because the effect on the remaining icons. So, when I booted my PC, I just right click on the "Natural Color Pro" icon and and choose Exit to get rid of it.
So, when I saw this icon in the Startup folder I immediately deleted it, and to may satisfaction finally got rid of it in the System Tray. After that I did a PC restart and did not see the dreaded Ox80000003. so far so good, I thought, as it hadn't been occurring with every shutdown. Perhaps when I took the time to exit the icon the error didn't show, but if I didn't exit it, it showed. Just a guess here, I'm not going to reinstall "Natural Color Pro" to test this hypothesis.
After that I downloaded "Autoruns for Windows" and shut down a lot of other items that were starting on Startup that didn't need to be starting every time I rebooted my PC. After that I did three restarts and three shutdowns and I haven't seen an instance of the dreaded error. Thank you Neemobeer for the suggestion. I hope this is finally it.
This exercise has not been without benefits though. My computer is running much faster perhaps because of the Backup and Restore. I don't know enough about these things but does rewriting an image backup file to a drive create an actual exact replica of the image or does it simply rewrite the required files consolidating their fragmentation? If it does consolidate the file, that might be a reason behind the faster performance. Alternatively, the new 2T Segate drive runs at I believe 7200 where as my WD ran at I believe 5400. I've also be scrubbing the PC with CC cleaner and Registry Repair all in an effort to get rid of this problem. So, I hope it's finally gone. I'll report back in about a week if all goes well till then.
I'd like to express my sincere thanks to all of you, kemical/Ross, BIGBEARJEDI and Neemobeer, for taking your time to look at my problem and share your expertise with me. It was all very much appreciated. I sincerely hope this thread is able to help someone else in the future.
Warm regards,
Frank
and (C