Win-98SE memory problems

[melott]

I need some help  :-D  
I'm running Win 98 SE on my online poker playing machine.
Thats all I use it for. I did a reformat of the drive and
a new install of Win 98 SE then went to MicroSoft and did
a complete update of the system.
The problem is memory isn't being used correctly.
After a while of playing I guess the buffer gets full and
the system gets VERY slow until it finally crashs.
I was told to install this file (gdidettool.exe) to solve
the problem but it doesn't install. It returns a message
saying there is no software, MS Office, MS Picture It, etc.
that is vulnerable to GDI+Graphics component security.

I use Opera browser and it is having the same page fault
problem as the other software.

Does anyone know what I need to fix this ??
(I'm NOT a Windows fan and I don't want to upgrade to
 Win XP or whatever)

[LoadWB]

Sounds like it might actually be a physical memory problem.

I'd download Microsoft's RAM tester and give it a run.  I have used this before, and it works very well.

If that doesn't work, on to the next troubleshooting step...

[Piru]

I did a reformat of the drive and a new install of Win 98 SE then went to MicroSoft and did a complete update of the system.

That still leaves the system wide open for viruses and other malware. W98 support has ended, no new security updates are being made.

I was told to install this file (gdidettool.exe) to solve the problem but it doesn't install. It returns a message saying there is no software, MS Office, MS Picture It, etc. that is vulnerable to GDI+Graphics component security.

That's nonsense. This GDI security hole does not cause system slowdowns. It's still good idea to plug the hole nevertheless.

Your system is probably infested by viruses and spyware (which are included with most "poker" applications). Use spybot, adaware and antivirus (for example free Avira AntiVir). You probably want to run some firewall aswell.

Anyway, if you suspect memory problem, use memtest86+ to test the memory.

[melott]

Your system is probably infested by viruses and spyware (which are included with most "poker" applications). Use spybot, adaware and antivirus (for example free Avira AntiVir)

Anyway, if you suspect memory problem, use memtest86+ to test the memory.

This is a completely new instalation, ( 2 days old ).
I don't think its hardware, the ram chips system test
good and everything was working fine until I did the
re-install on the formatted disk. The reason I did the
new install is I'm using SCSI drives in this computer
and the SCSI card I had in it was old and didn't reconize
the full size of the harddrive. So I installed a newer
SCSI card that allowed multi drives.
I would have thought an complete update at MSN.COM would
have fixed the problem ( foolish me ;-) ).

I don't think its a virus. I think I must be missing a
patch file that fixes this problem.

[jj]

u must be joking, within seconds of connecting an unprotected computer to the internet( no firewall, spyware blocker or anti-virus) I would put money on that machine crawling.

I have had experience of this

[Piru]

@JJ

Heh, didn't even consider that. I mean no-one is foolish enough to plug any windows machine directly to internet these days... right? ;-)

Firewall (or being behind NAT) is critical component of safe browsing.

[jj]

Just reading what he said, and he said installed 98se and then went to microsoft and downloaded updates.  He might be lucky and be running through a router, which should give him good protection.

Thats why I keep copies off all software, like avg and spbot on a cd, so if I do a fresh install I can install these and switch on windows firewall, before updating from microsoft.

[ferrellsl]

I had similar problems a few years ago.  Turned out that Win98 and ME didn't like the fact that I had installed over 512MB of system RAM.  It caused the floppy drive to work erratically and  as well as strange system "pauses" that sometimes lasted for several minutes.  It only began to work properly again after some creative registry hacks that turned the additional RAM into a disk cache as Win98 and ME weren't designed to access over 512MB of RAM.

[EDIT]  I think 512MB was the limit....may be more or less, but anyway, I had exceeded the max that Win98 or ME could use.

[Zac67]

You can tell Win9x not to use memory beyond the 512 MB barrier (I'll have to look this up if needed, something with MaxPage... in system.ini).

Win9x out of the box did not run -any- services that could be compromised with just a network connection. If you don't install the file server and don't use anything opening a port, you don't actually need a firewall (though I'd advise to install one anyway).

Of course security can very easily be compromised by using IE without necessary patches. Since IE has known vulnerabilities that can't be patched yet (that's probably not gonna change ever...), it's much wiser to use a 'proper' browser, e.g. Firefox.

[blobrana]

Hum,
You could run SysEdit. (Select Run in your Start menu, type SysEdit in the text box, and press Enter.) Click in the system.ini window. Scroll down to the [vcache] section. If you don't see one, type in [vcache] as a new heading. If you  enter these two lines:

MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=65535

to limit it to  64MB of cache memory
If you have more RAM, enter these two lines:

or MaxPhysPage=20000

(to limit it to 512mb, or less, experiment with less)
Close SysEdit, saving changes on the way out, and restart Windozes.

To improve Swap File Performance on systems with large amounts of memory, more than 128Mb, the hard disk based swap file is not needed as much. This tweak optimises the use of the swap file on such systems. Using notepad open the SYSTEM.INI file in your Windows directory. Find the [386Enh] section and add a new line reading

"ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1".

Save the file and restart Windozes for the change to take effect.

[Karlos]

@melott

Without a firewall (hardware or software), your fresh install is going to be absolutely riddled with crap within an hour of going online. You've had 2 days. Listen to Piru, he isn't joking.

[blobrana]

Hum,
i read that an unprotected PC  will be probed after 19 seconds of going online, on average.

"The speed with which PCs can become infected has now shortened. If your Windows computer is not properly protected, it will take 12 minutes before it becomes infected." - Comment from 2005.

"Was uns nicht umbringt, macht uns stark"  - Conan the barbarian.

[hamtronix]

So this topic is not removed but a reasonable discussion on what to do about software author issues gets the boot...

[DaBest]

Ditch win98se.

I installed Win2k last year on one of my sys. Installed SPK2, SPK3 off line. Installed ZONE alarm on line and AVG for virus checker. Then I installed SPK4 and then did a scan after with 3 spyware removal tools and my sys was full of spyware and viruses.

XP is the way to go. Save yourself some trouble and spend a bit of money. XP isn't that expensive to buy.

[orange]

actually I think that win98 is much better choice than XP , if you do not have any firewall/updates at all..