lecturn

win 98SE control panel, Explorer, My Computer
My computer hangs when trying to access these tools. I have used the safely remove hardware and remove commands on the my computer menu (r click) to remove my USB exernal drives jump drive and Maxtor PS3100extdr and they remove correctly. I also have a D drive 30 gig to back up the C: I have physically removed it. I can access any program that I can see or find and it runs correctly. I cannot use winzip to find and zip files. Find works fine. I have reloaded windows SE and run all of the troubleshooting items. Everytime I have to force shut down I run Scand disk from windows or the startup disk and all is well except fot the drive space report. It corrects each time. I have no problem getting on the internet explorer is fine. I am running AVG Free and McAffe Firewall and AdwareSE all are up to date and I am supposedly clean. I have also run win clean 2000 and cleared all junk and registers. I have several computers this one runs at 450mz P3 w/320meg ram. current C: is maxtor 40 gig.

OldGrayGary

Hi lecturn


Did you find a repair for your system yet? If not, read on:


Had your in-place reinstall of Windows gone well, you should have normal use of basic functions such as your Control Panel applets. However, I imagine if the Registry entries for your programs were badly awry, it would be best to simply uninstall and then reinstall them to restore the proper settings into the Registry. I'm not familiar with WinClean 2000, and I have to say that Registry Cleaners can cause as much harm as help. The only cleaner I ever recommend using (and only then when the situation calls for it) is CCleaner (it has won several awards and received good reviews for years).

A few questions:
1) Do you have more than one C:\Windows folder? (Do you have any that list as Windows.000, Windows.001, Windows.002, etc.?).
2) Did you ever install programs using your removable drives as the home folders for their program files?
3) Are your backups complete enough to consider a clean reinstall from scratch?
4) What installation/system CDs do you have available? (full retail, OEM, "Recovery Disk", .. or?)

In case you'd like to simply try your in-place reinstall over again, I'll paste in a guide I wrote for that some years ago (the procedure hasn't changed).
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Windows 98/Me "Over-the-top" Reinstall

Sometimes an over-the-top reinstallation of Windows can be a timesaver. On most recent computers the whole procedure can take as little as 30 or 40 minutes. A nice feature of this procedure is that your programs do not have to be reinstalled, and your data is not lost. You likely will need to visit Windows Update when finished, though, to download and reinstall some of the Security Updates. [Windows Update still works for Windows 98/Me, even though its period of active support by Microsoft expired in mid-2006 (all the updates up to that point can still be found there)].

Beforehand:

You may need to temporarily disable the Bios virus protection that is found on some motherboards (if your motherboard does not have this feature, you can skip this step). Enter Bios Setup by pressing the key displayed during startup, and somewhere on the first or second menu should be an item to Enable or Disable Bios Virus Protection (might be called BiosShield, or VirusGuard, or whatnot) ---> then, when you're finished with your reinstallation of Windows, re-Enable the Bios protection feature.

On some systems, an over-the-top will require your CD-key (Windows 98/Me product license key). [This is often on a sticker either on the case, or on the original CD]. If you've lost your CD-key: before you start the reinstall look for it by starting regedit from the Start/Run box, then navigate to the key (you navigate in regedit like you do in Windows Explorer) HKEY_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion . . . if you click on "Current Version", you should see a list of keys and values in the box displaying on your right. One of these will read "ProductKey" and will consist of 5 sets of 5 alphanumeric characters = your CD key. Be careful when in regedit just to look at things and not make accidental changes.

During the reinstall, it is also a good idea to be entirely disconnected from any networks, wired or wireless (unplug ethernet cables, disable wireless), and to be disconnected from printers, scanners, cameras, multifunction devices, fax machines, PDAs, memory card readers, USB flash drives, external USB/Firewire/SATA drives, etc.
____________________________
Over The Top ReInstall:

Place your Windows98/Me CD in the CD/DVD drive (or be ready to point Windows to the place on your hard drive where your Windows 98/Me installation files are stored).

Boot with a bootable floppy or CD - "with CD-rom support", and from DOS rename the win.com file to win.bak. Like this

C:
cd \Windows
rename win.com win.bak

If you have the Windows 98/Me CD in your CD/DVD drive, you can then switch to the drive letter of your CD drive [often drive D:], simply by typing the drive letter followed by a colon ( for example - D: ) at the command prompt.

If you have the Windows 98/Me installation files on your hard drive, switch to that location (which is often C:\Windows\Options\Cabs - by typing cd C:\Windows\Options\Cabs ), and start setup (by simply type the command: setup)

***When Windows asks if you want to use the directory C:\Windows.000, instead choose "Other" and type in C:\Windows (without the .000 following).

Make sure that you have your antivirus, antispyware, and firewall running before you connect to networks afterward. Don't forget to visit Windows Update ASAP to get the Critical Patches the need reinstalling.
__________________________________________

Let us know if you have questions
. . . Gary

lecturn

Thanks Gary, lots to answer here. Will get back shortly, I hope. getting ready to go on vacation. I am currently using my "bug house" 2000pro computer. Can't wait to get back to the 98.