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I have been an IB customer for years, never had an issue. I never use the latest build, I currently use the May 14 2010 build (904.9). Bullet proof.
I've been with IB for 3 years and TWS has never crashed once, running on XP Pro and now Windows 7 64 bit. I've lost connectivity to IB servers a few times, but it's never crashed. You have some sort of systemic issue with your rig. I realize that when you said it crashes *every time*, what you mean is it crashes sometimes, but even that is very unusual. If you claim you've tried running TWS on multiple rigs and it crashes every time, you're making it up.
To the OP, this is simple, it's your computer. I run TWS on a 4 year old Celeron, and on a quad core top of the line system, works great on both. Lap top, wifi, what ever, never had a problem. The only other thing I can think, I don't know where you are in the world, or at what time you try to log in, but there is a system server reload each day. If your reload is scheduled at the time you log in, then you will have problems. Have you tried getting a service tech on live chat?
Seriously you shouldn't be using Windows xp, anymore. I figure it's some bug between the two, IB wont fix due to the fact the OS is obsolete. I would recommend you update to windows 7 64 bit, trust me the improvement in performance will help. Also that 8gigs of memory is a waste since your probably capped to 4 gigs on windows xp. Also make sure your using version 21 of java, the most recent one. I have used tws on windows vista and windows 7 no problems. Get yourself an OEM version of windows 7, cheaper then the retail version and you should be good. Oh and make sure your computer and can support 64 bit version of the os.
IB is probably the best and the second follows at a distance. I don't like their forex though and the requirement for the user to convert foreign currency to base currency gains. They should improve on that part. Stock and futures trading is fast, efficient, cheap and problem free.
Read what I wrote. XP x64 is not capped to 4 Gb. TWS freezes up with every version of Java I've tried.
Right click on your TWS icon and look at the target line. It should be something like C:\WINDOWS\system32\javaw.exe -cp jts.jar;pluginsupport.jar;hsqldb.jar;jcommon-1.0.12.jar;jfreechart-1.0.9.jar;jhall.jar;other.jar;riskfeed.jar;rss.jar -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true -Xmx512M jclient/LoginFrame C:\Jts Change -Xmx512M to -Xmx1024M. Does it help?