[oscar51]

This forum does not have a "I learned about computers from that ..." category, so I'll enter this post as a "Tip" in case it can save someone else from the problem I had.

Since September 1999 when I bought my current computer, it has never worked right. The biggest problem was screen/keyboard/mouse freeze-ups, i.e., with no warning and for no cause everything would just stop, usually at the most inopportune times. During Y2K I had occasion to reload Windows98SE three times for various reasons, but things never really got much better. I gradually learned to minimize the lock-ups by keeping as few programs running at one time as possible out of the 40 or so application programs I had installed.

My most recent crisis was precipitated when I installed a 10-100 ethernet card so I could sign up for DSL service. Every time I tried to load the NIC software it gave me an error message that indicated that I should reload Windows98. So I did -- and everything immediately got worse: the Backup utility would not run; the MSConfig utility would freeze-up the system; and other weird things would happen. So I reloaded Windows98 again (are we keeping count here?) with no improvement. After several calls to the DSL tech support people, I finally got DSL working and it has been reasonably stable. The failure of the various utility programs was something I just learned to lived with -- until one day I tried 'MSINFO32.EXE>Tools>Version Conflict Manager' to see if I could fix anything. That utility listed about 8 current system files that had version numbers older (lower) that the previous copies of those files. When asked if I wanted to replace the current files with newer (previous) versions. I said 'Yes'.

Ouch! That was the wrong thing to do (or, in retrospect, maybe it turned out to be the right thing because it forced me to take drastic action.)

The first symptom that something was really wrong was an unusual error message, to wit: "Spool32 - This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." followed by a system freeze. After rebooting a few times, I began to get a similar and just as fatal error message: "Explorer - This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. [file name] caused an invalid page fault ..." At this point 'Ctrl-Alt-Del' showed that no system programs of any kind were being loaded and Windows would not run at all. So I decided that it was time to start over from scratch, something (I admit) I had always been a little curious about doing and had not been sufficiently motivated to try. Now I was so motivated.

Fortunately DOS still worked so I was able to copy all my data onto ZIP discs along with other useful things like .ini files and other setup information before I wiped HD C: clean with FDISK and FORMAT. (I had reasonably recent backup disks written by the system Backup utility before it stopped working but I had no confidence that they would be readable given all the trouble I now had.)

Well, there's more, but I'll stop here. After two weeks of being tied to my computer I have Windows98SE reloaded and about 90% of my application programs working -- and so far no unusual or frequent system lockups. Of course I lost all my Windows updates including IE 5.1, but I am more than a little gun shy to do some of those updates again. Maybe in a month or two, or whenever Bill G. releases another operating system -- whichever comes first.

Moral: If your computer is working reasonably well and you are diddling around and come across an option affecting system files that says "Do you want to do this?" -- Don't.

[bd]

Hi Oscar,

I was interested in your tale and then you just quit. Glad you came through with only a little gun shyness. Think of the experience you gained. However the experience didn't prevent you from making the statement that you would do the updates again in a month or two or when Bill G. releases a new operating system . Whistler has been out in beta and is supposed to be released as Windows XP this month. Can we look forward to "the rest of the story" soon?

Bob

PS: I saw your post here when I came to post a story /tip of my own.

[This message has been edited by bd (edited 02-18-2001).]

[oscar51]

Bob: Part of the "more" is at http://www.helponthe.net/tsgbb/Forum1/HTML/013150.html Before I wiped drive C: clean, I installed an old HD that was just laying around and copied the Win98SE CD files to it via DOS so I could install Windows from D: instead of from the CD-ROM drive. This worked pretty well except that after I had Windows98SE up and running I noticed that the files on drive D: were corrupted. I don't know how it happened and nothing I tried would fix it. So after two days of frustration I asked for help via this BB and got it from Dan O. I suppose in this day and age of multi-Gigabyte hard drives there is not much sense in installing a 500Mb drive, but it helped me out of a jam -- and it was free, if you don't count my time. But what is time to us old retired folks?