WINDOWS 98(SE) PROBLEMS

[ajwebb]

Hi All,

I hope someone can help me, because this problem is driving me bonkers. I have had problems with registry corruption in Windows 98. This started after a crash in a game using DirectX 7.0. After I rebooted, I noticed that I started getting blue screen errors. I "fixed" the registry using Norton Windoctor and the problems got so bad I couldn't boot successfully. Eventually I did a reinstall of WIN 98SE but the install program kept crashing at the setting up hardware stage. Eventually I just restored older versions of USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT, and that at least got the system running, but now it is almost terminally flakey. Programs using DirectX always crash after a while and various drivers will fail. Any sort of stressing of the system will produce Blue Screen errors. I can't successfully reinstall WIN 98, and reinstalling DirectX doesn't help either. Windoctor won't fix the problem and Regclean and RegRepair 2000 haven't helped either. I have a copy of Windows 2000 pro upgrade, but I am afraid to install it as I'm afraid the process will crash just like the WIN 98 install does (and since I don't have a copy of a working 2000 registry I can't even recover from that). Any Advice?

Thanks in Advance!

- Andy Webb

[CMonster]

Certain games will overwrite your system files temporarily and will not have the chance to restore them if the game is exited improperly. Did you run SFC (system file checker)?

I'm not even going to tell you what I think about Norton's Windoctor - but you see it didn't work... in the future I would suggest you use "ERU" (Emergency Restore Utility, found on Windows 9x CD), and don't forget to keep it up to date.

Is your system/CPU overclocked? First clock it back to normal specifications and then test it.

Since you cannot successuflly reinstall Windows it sounds like it might also be a hardware problem. Have you done any recent upgrades to the system? You might want to double check all your cable connections, reseat the memory and CPU, use moderate BIOS settings.



[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 03-26-2000).]

[ajwebb]

Hi CMonster,

I am indeed overclocking (AMD K6-2 300 overclocked to 350) but it was rock-solid stable for several months. I installed SFC (thanks for the tip) and found quite a few incompatible files. The system now seems more stable but DirectX apps still crash after a while. I'll try reseating the memory, cables, CPU and setting the speed back to 300. Is it worth trying to reinstall 98(SE) again after that?

- Andy Webb

[ayuen]

Hi,
I don't know if this applies, but when I tried to run Win98SE on an overclocked Cel400, it would install fine but it would randomly crash and would only boot in safe mode. I tried this several times and I finally gave up. I came to the conclusion that during one of these crashes, something to the registry got corrupted and bootup would point to missing files or something. I think it's just the nature of Win98SE to be unstable on O/C systems.

[Richard_Cranium72]

If Windows 98 Setup stops responding (hangs)=>> http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q189/4/73.ASP ..Microsoft Windows 98--
IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, you should first make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat). Both are hidden files in the Windows folder.=>> http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q136/7/83.asp . : This article describes the registry files in Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 98 Second Edition. =>> http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q250/4/10.ASP

[ajwebb]

DING! Light goes on. Thanks Richard for those articles, I have been running install with the cursed Norton Nprotect program running. When I disabled it, the install actually finished successfully! I'm beginning to wonder if the the Norton Utilities aren't more of a hazard than a help.

- Andy

[Mntsnow]

hehe, Thats why the first notice that pops up when installing programs state "close all running programs prior to installing"

Glad you found your answer.

Mntsnow