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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: melott on October 01, 2004, 04:26:53 PM
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I need some help with Windows 98SE.
This is my wife's machine (got to try to keep her happy)
On my PC, when it gets too messed up I just reformat and
reinstall. She has so much on her machine now that its
almost out of the question to wipe the drive and start
over.
SpyWare is taking over and also Explorer or Outlook or
something is tring to start on boot-up. I'm on dialup
and on boot-up the connection window open.
She is using Opera for the browser and Outlook Express
for mail. Opera is sometimes crashing now and sometimes
Outlook Express also. When connecting to the server it
appears to make the connection twice. When she in just
running some other prg. the connection window will
pop-up to connect to the net server and she gets error
messages popping up randomly saying Explorer has error.
There was a thread awhile back that mentioned a couple
prgs. that help get rid of the SpyWare but I couldn't
find it. I've tried 'CWShredder' and 'Cleaner' but they're
not doing the job.
I need to clean out the SpyWare and fix the Registry.
Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
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AdAware isn't as thorough as other spyware-removal tools, but it removes what it does find.
RegCleaner (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download460.html) is good at fixing registry problems.
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SpyBot!!! Get Spybot
-Edit- And get XP on there... 98 is a pain in the...
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Spybot can be found here (http://safer-networking.org).
Also make sure you have up to date MS patches on (visit Windows Update, it's still active for '98) and up to date anti-virus.
All versions of Windows require constant maintenance to ensure no bugs get in, it's just part of the fun/challenge of having it ;-)
I'd suggest you sort a way of backing her files up (network to your PC or a CD recorder or something) as they all go bad sooner or later!
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- And get XP on there... 98 is a pain in the...
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I've stayed with 98SE because I don't see much difference
in the different versions.
My guess is I would have all the same problems with XP
as I'm having with 98.... so why change.
I'll get SpyBot and Reg???? and try them.
Is there any other prgs. that might help???
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Hum,
and if you do manage to clean the machine,
here`s a Service Pack (http://files3.majorgeeks.com/files/6aaa65bb3591df310b36d6318d6f4e0f/allinone/sesp162en.exe) for Windows98 SE that contains all Windows98 SE updates from WindowsUpdate site and more... .
(Windows98 SE 1.16.2, only 12.1Mb)
Though you`ll have to update that as well, cos of the .jpeg exploit.... (unless you use mozilla etc)
[ On a clean unpatched machine you may last 30 seconds before your infected... (no one can hear you scream) ]
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In addition to the suggestions above, make sure you add a firewall to your system. Somehting like ZoneAlarm (which is free) can speeed up you OS by blocking ports that are commonly used by worms.
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melott wrote:
I've stayed with 98SE because I don't see much difference in the different versions. My guess is I would have all the same problems with XP as I'm having with 98.... so why change.
Definitely wrong. With Windows98 SE my machine crashed once every while. Now, with Windows 2000, it's nearly rock-solid. The only time the OS failed on me was because my hard drive started dying. It's also much harder for malicious software to get in provided you practice proper data hygiene. Win2K is more hardened than Win98SE in that regard as it says 'no' more often. No disrespect intended, but if your wife's machine is filling up with crap like that, you need to talk to her about it.
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'Honey, I need to talk to you. Either W98 goes out the door or I go.' :-P
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The diffrencies between XP and w98 are huge!
w98 is like trying to drive a car with the parking brake on compared to xp. The only "feature" w98 has is the blue screen of death.
1. As mentoned above, get "spybots - search and destroy".
You can try another one if you want to, but i wouldnt recommend it. Spyware removers often get you you more spyware - just like a trojan horse. Thats what i would call a "real" trojan.
Spybots 1.3, by the way, has got resident protection! not a single byte in the registry can be changed without your authorization.
2. Use Mozilla Firefox as your default browser. My god, i cant start to tell you how much crap get into your computer by using internet explorer and the like.
3.I usually check my mail at a website, to avoid getting it "into" my computer. As a rule of thumb - you got email reading software, use antivirus. I can recommend avast, which is free of charge, under the condition that use register the product at their website. www.avast.com
4. Firewall. I actually use the built in xp firewall, but im also on dial-up. Using broadband i woulkd recommend a hardware firewall. The software firewalls just suck your mhz out of your pezee.
As simple as that you say? yes sir!
Seriously, i never have any problems with my computer, so i guess that means i know what im talking about....
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Seriously, i never have any problems with my computer, so i guess that means i know what im talking about....
Means nothing...you could just be someone who doesn't do much with your computer, "never" could be a span of merely 10 days, and you could be really lucky.
:-D
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I could be... but if I was i would never made a comment on this particular topic.
But on the other hand, thats not easy for you to know.
But I do use my computer a LOT. true multitasking.
I fly rc controlled airplanes with my own custom-built rc interface, using sims like FMS and aerofly PRO.
I Make music using tools like Cubase VST and fruityloops.
I do a lot os scripting in Purebasic and PHP.
I rip dvd:s using smartripper and Vidomi, mainly by using OGG vorbis as soundtrack and DivX5.02 as codec and OGG as container.
I sometimes have my FTP sever running day and night when i feel i have a need for it. I usually have a web server running also, but as i said im currently on dial-up, so whats the point.
sucking dv material from my camcorder and editing it with pinnacle 9 and pinnacle edition.
Burning cd:s, dvd:s... and all of that.
I aasure you, with the right configuration, everything will run just fine. and yeah, for weeks.
I actually cannot remeber the last time i had to hard-reset my computer because of some sort of failure.
I just turn it off sometimes. Like when i know im going to be away from home a couple of days. honestly. :-)
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Get Amithlon and run it on there!!!!
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I didnt mean to sound like im "all dat.." just wanted to point out i use my pecee. :-P
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She has so much on her machine now that its
almost out of the question to wipe the drive and start
over.
In addition to the other suggestions, I would suggest defragmenting the drive. In my experience, nasty things can happen when you run low on disc space in Windows including corrupted files. The Windows defragmenter likes to see at least 16% free space which also seems to about where trouble begins. However, defragment will usually work with less free space available. You just have to run it more than once. If you can't free up more than, say, 10% even after several passes, it's time for a larger drive.
You can also run chkdsk /f to clean up some stuff. It's sure a lot faster than backing up and restoring the darned thing.
HB
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I'll stay away from MS bashing here and give you some tips...
Overall, I'd recommend taking the computer to a local shop and ask them to look at it. Backing up and wiping the system clean is standard practice for Windows, unless you REALLY know what you're doing.
Backing up your My Documents folder and e-mail should be a top priority. To find out where your e-mail is located, boot up Outlook Express and go to Tools->Options->Maintenance->Store Folder. Note the location of the folder, then shut down OE and backup all the DBX files you find. If you need to restore after a re-install, create a new Outlook Express identity FIRST, find out where the store folder is located, shut down OE, then copy your e-mail backup into the store folder. The messages should show up the next time you boot OE. The Import/Export features on the File menu are preferred, but doesn't always work (don't be surprised -- Thunderbird isn't much better in terms of importing and exporting).
My biggest beef with Win98 is that if it crashes, your hard drive can get corrupted, and scandisk won't always fix it. I had a problem once where the drive was corrupt, and emptying the Recycle Bin trashed half the drive! Many weird problems are not spyware but "natural" deterioration of the drive. Upgrading to XP and the new NTFS filesystem will make your drive very resilient to data loss, since NTFS has many, many fault-tolerance features designed to protect the filesystem from both OS and application problems.
If going to XP, I'd recommend a hard drive and memory upgrade. You don't really need more CPU power, as XP is only slow if you have lots of 3rd party software that loads at bootup.
2. Use Mozilla Firefox as your default browser. My god, i cant start to tell you how much crap get into your computer by using internet explorer and the like.
If you have ActiveX enabled by default in IE, you'll get bugged by spam but you shouldn't get viruses and the like. Still, Firefox is very, very good replacement these days, if you can tolerate the random crashes.
Using broadband i woulkd recommend a hardware firewall.
A broadband router with a firewall is a MUST for any home with more than one computer. Raw DSL and Cable is spam waiting to happen.
In addition to the other suggestions, I would suggest defragmenting the drive.
Yes, but you should invest in a real defrag solution. The defragger for Win98 demands complete defragmentation (no padding between files), which can actually make your system slower in practice. That's why Be never came with a defragmenter -- it was built into the filesystem and automaticly padded files. An old copy of diskeeper is cool, but you're better off upgrading to XP and a new, super-fast hard drive.
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Another question here.......
Does all of these prgs. need to be in the register??
She has a screen full of icons and I think all of them
are being loaded on boot-up, It takes about 5 minutes
for everything to boot. The drive just keeps chattering
away for about 5 minutes ( all these prgs. loading??).
Many of these prgs. are only run seldomly. Can they
be taken out of the register and still be run from the
icon when she wants??
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Hi melott,
A couple of things:
Hit Ctrl+Alt+Del, and have a look at some of the programs running in tandem with Windows.
Our goal is to minimize that.
Close that window, Click on "Start", "Run", then type:
msconfig
Press enter, and on the tab labelled "General" (the first tab), make sure that "Selective Startup"
is ticked.
Then, click on the tab labelled "Startup".
Here, you will see tasks that Windows loads at startup, including your Wife's
programs.
Uncheck anything you DO NOT want to load at startup. Things like "systray.exe", "taskmon.exe",
and "rundll32.exe..." should be left checked. To be sure of an item, you can punch it's filename into
google or a website like liutilities.com, and find out whether it's safe/unsafe/necessary or not.
Save your changes, reboot the system, hit Ctrl+Alt+Del again, and have a look. You can start
"whittling" away at all unnecessary processes, and Windows will begin to load and operate much nicer.
My suggestion, would be to create a new folder on your desktop, and have either you (or your Wife)
create shortcuts to all of her programs, and put them in the new folder.
BUT, before all of this, run SpyBot, RegCleaner (start RegCleaner, go to "Tools", then "Registry Tools",
and click on "Do them All") and the TrendMicro 'online' virus scanner (clear all browser caches before
running the virus scanner). After you're done getting rid of unnecessary startup items, run RegCleaner
again (this will also give you the option of cleaning up the mess in your "msconfig/startup items" list).
Personally, I do not run any anti-virus software (like Norton/McAffee) with 98. I use the above tools,
mozilla firefox, and fire up the occasional "online" virus scanner. I have no problems with this method,
in fact, my Win98SE install was actually a completely crashed, virus-ridden mess salvaged from a friend's
"dead" PC, and subsequently "relocated" to another computer. I've NEVER had to completely reinstall any
OS, although there are cases where it's necessary. YMMV.
The above is really only the tip of the iceberg, but if you're patient and have the desire you can get Windows
running _very_ stable and responsive. Here is a great site (http://www.windows-help.net/windows98/all-tips.shtml#start) full of information on cleaning up and optimizing
your 98 install.
About switching to XP...if you like 98, and it works for you, there's really no reason to change. I like 98,
but as soon as I can afford it and have time I'm installing 2000 or XP. It's probably something to consider doing, eventually.
-edit- Oh...and make sure to backup your data:-P
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@ -D-
Thanks .. some good info there........
I guess I'm going to have to learn to live with Win98 :-)
I've got her machine cleaned-up to where it runs fairly
well. The site you mentioned looks good.. have to browse
it for awhile.
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As for SpyBot and AdAware: get both, as I regularily find crap that one misses getting caught by the other!
For Anitvirus get AVG from Grisoft (free!) or you can buy a 2 year license for les than the commercial Norton/McAfee ones...
For Firewall try Sygate (also free!).
For email/spam try Presurium Frontgate MX, also for free, and it cuts spam down after about a week to 10 days!
JV 16 is good for cleaning registries as well.
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One of the most nasty things I caught while surfing was VX2.. I had to reformat one machine because of it. I finally found an ad-aware add-on that's free that gets rid of it.. VX2 is also known as betterinternet
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Hi,
OK this is going to be tough,
The first thing to do is call up windows explorer, put it in the list category so that you can see all the dates of when she last used all of her programs, get a sheet of paper and come up with a cut date to decide on which programs she uses a lot and write those in the keep column, then look at all the other programs and list those in the cut department, these are the programs that she has on her computer that she really hasn't used in quite a long time.
Then type in the computer
Format c:\
and blame the rest on me because you followed my directions.
smerf :lol:
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The advice about running MSCONFIG to streamline the startup is good.
For adaware visit:
www.lavasoft.de
and get spybot from:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/
If you have access to Partiton Magic then divide the drive into two partitions. One for the OS and one for DATA. Move over all personal data to the second (data partition) and format the OS partition (Drive C:) and re install the OS for the best results.
Oh yeah! Don't forget to install Mozilla Firefox 1.0 as the browser and Mozilla ThunderBird as the E-mail client.