General Protection Fault (GPF) - a General Protection Fault typically results in an error message that reads something along the lines of “…has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down”. You are then forced to shut down the application, or it will be automatically closed down. Typically, you will continue to receive this error either when you try to open the application, or when you attempt to run a particular function within that program.
A GPF usually occurs because a DLL no longer exists at the given location. The Windows Operating System or the application itself will display the GPF in order to prevent a total system crash. The software has called the error message rather than shut down your system. If the call for this error message does not exist then you may receive a more serious error.