Windows Explorer Display Trouble

AMD Duron 800mHz, 511 MB/133Hz, Win98, 20 GB Harddrive.

I hope I can explain it right. Most times, not all the time, my Windows explorer does not display properly when I open it up. I have it set to the usual Toolbars, Detail for the Files, and not as Webpage.
What happens though is that only the Directories are visible, and the right side of the screen, where the File details usually would be visible is a blank screen, Desktop colour or a blank screen with the closing 'X' in the right top corner (just for the 'filespace'), or the file details are partially visible, with the lower part of that space blank with the 'X'. Which in that case it's easy, I just drag the top edge of the blank space down and extend the file details space that is visible to it's full size. That's the easy one. But in both other cases no File details will show up if I choose a directory to open/view. It does not make a difference how wide I will have the settings of the Directory space on the left side of the screen, it can be wide or really narrow, I still run into the same problem. Sometimes I can manage to select an Windows explorer edge at the bottom, not selecting the Windows Taskbar though, which is most of the time impossible, since that will drag the top edge of the Taskbar up, instead of the Windows explorer/ file details space.
So all in all, I can't use my Windows explorer to browse or work my files, which majorly sucks.
And on top of that, if Win Explorer decides to mess up on me, it also resets my desktop icons to some locations that I have not chosen.
Any idea what could cause all this??
Please do not tell me to reinstall windows, I'm begging. You would think that Bill Gates could have come up with a Win98 that doesn't cause so much trouble.

 

See if anything <a href=http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26303> here</a> helps. Let us know what happens.

 

ok sunny,lets see what we can do here ti help you find out whats causing this first.
click start/run,type "msconfig"(without the quotes) click the startup tab,uncheck everything exept systray and explorer,re-boot,try your windows explorer see if its still acting up,if not add back your stuff in msconfig one at a time,re-starting after every add back.
and go here. www.lavasoftusa.com download adaware,scan your pc for spyware and delete it all.
post back and let us know how you do.
good luck.

 

Ok, first of all, as usual, a big Thank you.

"Click the right pane then press the ctrl key while tapping the numeric pad's + key", didn't do anything.
Deleting the Explorer bar value in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main, didn't do the trick either.

Deleting the DirectoryColsX binary value in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer neither.

Then I tried it different, closing all applications other then the Registration, deleting both above mentioned values, rebooting the computer. That seemed to do the trick, as well as changing the view to something else then Detail, as the Help links of Microsoft mentioned that my problem only happens if the View is set to Details.
Like I said so far so good, but if the problem comes back I guess I will have to go into more detail into what causes the problem, and try Steve's way, the msconfig way.
But one more question, what is Spyware anyway, and what does adaware do??

 

http://www.spychecker.com/spyware.html


take a look for yourself sunny,and dont forget....ADAWARE!!! go get it.
good luck.