Windows XP crash with blue screen during following shutdown (rdbss.sys, STOP code D4)

Quite reliably, about every 1-2 days Windows XP (v. 5_1_2600 SP: 3) crashes. Network goes down, absolutely no applications can be started ("The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000142).") and the only option is to reboot.

During shutdown a blue screen comes up (referring to rdbss.sys and STOP code 0X000000D4).

Any ideas about the cause and how to fix it?

It seems to be a problem other people experience as well, but so far I couldn't find a fix for it (see for example http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1159333610).

The computer worked fine with Windows Vista and the problems started only after a fresh XP installation. I guess it could be a hardware problem but, at least to me, it really doesn't look like it at the moment. Update virus scanner etc...

STOP 0xD4 is SYSTEM_SCAN_AT_RAISED_IRQL_CAUGHT_IMPROPER_DRIVER_UNLOAD. As Microsoft themselves write:

This indicates that a driver did not cancel pending operations before unloading.

They also note the following:

If the driver responsible for the error can be identified, its name is printed on the blue screen and stored in memory at the location (PUNICODE_STRING) KiBugCheckDriver.

which most likely refers to the rdbss.sys file. That file is apparently the "Redirected Drive Buffering SubSystem Driver", which is part of Windows. This MSDN page suggests it's only loaded for use with network (SMB) shares.

All of this put together suggests that it's happening because XP is trying to use the network (the pending operations), but the network goes down and for some reason those pending operations are not canceled. That may be related to the "unable to start any programs" issue.

I would probably start by running sfc /scannow to verify that you don't have any corrupted system files. If that doesn't help, try updating the drivers (if possible); especially those for your network card and hard drives. If that doesn't work either, do a hardware check using memtest and a thorough chkdsk.