re: Sudden Changes to System..
Tuesday, October 4, 2005 at 2:06 am
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Wy
(602 messages posted)
Run the Maintenance Wizard -
Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Maintenance Wizard
It's possible its sluggishness et al is due to poor maintenance. The Wizard will
get rid of junk, run scan disk, and straighten things out by defragging the hard
drive. If it has seldom or never been defragged, expect this procedure to take a
couple of hours or more, depending on the size of the hard drive, so run it overnight
or while you're doing other things.
That's for a basic start. If you're still experiencing problems, run through two
or three anti-spyware programs and an anti-virus program, making sure they're all
updated first before you use them. Often it's as simple as that one-two punch of
Wizard and spy/virus cleanup to get things back on track.
You could also always reinstall Windows, but if you don't have the CD, you might
find a copy of it in the Windows>Options>Cabs folder. If you see about 125 MB worth
of stuff in that folder, that's your Windows backup. Some computers will have this,
some won't. If you do, you're lucky. Simply click on the setup.exe file and you're
all set to go. Just make sure you DON'T select reformat the disk if it asks you,
because you'll only end up losing everything on the computer. A simple reinstall
will still keep most everything in place, although a few odd programs may need to
be reinstalled afterwards - make sure you have on hand any serial numbers needed
for the programs you really want to keep in case you might have to reinstall them.
You won't know which ones will have to be reinstalled until after you've reinstalled
Windows and start testing everything out, but I've always found it out to be just
a couple of programs in my case.
On Monday, October 3, 2005 at 7:09 pm, David wrote:
>I'm using a family member's Windows 98 until I can buy one. It was running fine
>(except it's very slow) until about the end of last month, when some changes started
>happening. The desktop icons are gone (the background is still there), and you
can't
>right-click it. The explorer won't let you type in a directory to go to, you have
>to navigate to the folder. Run has disappeared from the Start Menu, it freezes
and
>crashes frequently, and some programs have trouble because something's wrong with
>the MS Sans Serif font.
>
>btw, some of the specs (to my knowledge):
>
>Manufactuer: Tiger (Tiger K6)
>OS: Windows 98 SE
>Processor: AMD-K6 3D
>RAM: 124.0 MB
>HD: 10 GB
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