Hi Trip
This starts to ring bells with me, how can i check the reg' i have run all my anti virus and firewalls and nothing has come up, What is the next step to checking this out, iv'e had a few errors boxes over the weeks, not too many, but after you saying this i checked out the site and read about it and i'm woundering whether this is to blame for my connection not working properly, it did but only for a few days, then it was back to the old setting, this has happened 4 times.I dont know how to get into the reg to check it out, do you code etc.
Missy

Unfortunatly its a clever place to put something like that
I really wouldnt advise playing with the registry unless you know what your doing, especially on a 98 box
As the article mentions, the registry is where windows stores its configuration, change the wrong thing and it may well become unbootable

Phoenix is right. I almost never edit the registry on a Windows machine unless I absolutely have to. It's really an advanced skill and one wrong move could make your machine nothing more than a fancy paper weight. I think someone said in one of the other threads to download "HijackThis", install the program and run it. You can copy and paste the results into a post and let the gang here take a look. I think the results include registry keys but Phoenix or ffreeloader would know more about that.

I'm including a link to a download site here:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html

Once the page opens, scroll down to the "Official Downloads" section. The second item listed should be "HijackThis". There will be list of download mirrors underneath. It shouldn't matter much which one you pick. Click on one and follow the downloading instructions. If you have trouble, give us a hollar and we'll be glad to help.

Thanks but what do i do then ?
And could you please tell me where or who to ask about borrowing or buying a CD of win 2000 I need one for next monday when i am ment to be go on broadband, the guy at BT said get rid of 98 and use 2000
Hope everything is ok now..
Thanks Missy

Oops...I was still editing out the errors in my previous post when you made the next one.

You can't really borrow a Windows 2000 Pro disk to install on your computer legally since each disk is licensed to the person or company that purchased it. I have to recommend that you purchase your own copy of it. You can get it from amazon here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...7982/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_11_2/026-0802433-9340419

The above is the full version. You can buy an upgrade version for less here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...7982/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_11_1/026-0802433-9340419

However, if you upgrade from 98 to 2000, I'm afraid you might still end up keeping the same problems including malware that you currently have. Buying and installing a full version means that you would completely delete everything on your hard disk right now including the Windows 98 operating system and everything else stored on it. If you go that route, you will need to backup everything currently on your hard drive that you want to keep.

We'd be glad to help you with his process. It can be a bit daunting to install an operating system if you've never done it before (after you've done it a few dozen times, it's kind of kewl tho). Let us know how we can help.

Trip i'm on that site trying to download, but it says it cant find winzip, so i went into find and there are these so which one do i use and why cant it see these
WINZIP.GID winzip, winzip 8.1, uninstall winzip suppose i dont need this one.

Just looked on Amazon for 2000 CD well it looks like i will have to put up with win 98 as i cant afford those prices.
I dont work now through illness so i had to sell my shop, so have to watch the pennies.
Missy

Are you saying that you can't download it or that once downloaded, you can't unzip it? I know XP comes with winzip but I'm not sure about 98? Anyone else out there have an idea?

It say it cant find winzip, before it downloads

Hmmmmm. When you do a search, you do find a what looks like a number of compression programs so apparently they are actually on your computer but not located in a place where the download program normally looks (probably somewhere in "Program Files"). I can steer you to a free download of 7-zip but I don't know if that would help:

http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

Let me think about this as see what I can come up with.

you can get an OEM copy of XP for under 100 quid these days, if your computer can handle it i'd go with that over 2000, lets remember 2000 is a 5 year old Os, hardly an 'upgrade'

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Operating_Systems_20.html#aOS_2d002_2dMS
they have pro for under 100
home for just over 60

bear in mind these are OEM copys and have special licensing restrictions

Iv'e looked on the site and these two seem ok for me, as i just need it for home use.
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition upgrade - Retail (SW-015-ms) £69-95
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition - OEM (OS-OO1-ms) £53.95
What does OEM mean please?
Is is pretty easy to put XP on ?
Grateful Missy

Here's a web definition for OEM (clickable link).

It's pretty much as step-by-step process, like any other Windows-style "wizard". Basically, you just toss in the CD and then follow the instructions. I'm including a couple of links that will give you a look at the installation process:

Click me 1

click me 2

They are both multi-page web documents so you'll have to click through to keep reading. Hope they help.

an OEM copy is tied to the machine you install it on, meaning if you throw the machine out, the license goes with it (legally) not to say you couldnt re install it on your new system, but that would be in breach of the license aggreement

upgrade copies are more hassle than they are worth in my opinion, as they keep alot of the underlying architecture, thus keeping alot of the problems, and require you to keep hold of your old media (atleast, old upgrades did, havnt used one since 98 era)

also dont buy into the marketing
Home Vs Professional is not just a matter of home users and work systems, pro is a more mature, and stable operating system, properly locked down its secure and powerful,

if you just browse the web and read emails, its probably not worth the extra money, if you do anything else, id recommend the extra 30 quid to be honest

Is it easy to install? thats a matter of opinion

Note: just saw trips link re: OEM, in this instance that defination does not hold true, and may lead to confusion, as it will not be a customised or modified copy of the operating system, it will be a standard one, the only difference in this istance is the license restrictions, the same restrictions apply to copies you recieve from OEMs with new computers (such as Dell or HP) who HAVE indeed customised the copy of XP with all there fancy branding crapness

Thanks for that info, iv'e been thinking their are a few people around here who come to your home and help you to either repair your computer or show you how to do thing, i think it would be better to watch someone so i can ask questions, i learn better that way.
I got a "fatal exception 06 has occurred@ 0028:00000356 it wouldnt let me restart so i had to reboot, i had to reboot 3 times disconnected 4 times, the joys of computing eh! I was on the site Blackviper that Trip told me about.

No worries Missy
I think you will find that with modern equipment and software computers aren't the problem people make out

Code:

C:\Documents and Settings\rcoates>systeminfo | find "Up Time"
System Up Time:            6 Days, 2 Hours, 1 Minutes, 53 Seconds

Code:

soverign htdocs # uptime
 23:07:22 up 46 days,  5:28,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

If I may, Ryan...

Missy, what Ryan shows you above is from a simple command that shows how long a particular PC or system (eg server) has been running for uninterrupted. As you may notice, the above shows pretty reliable systems, and is easily what you can expect from a decent OS looked after with some general common sense and care.

Missy, it sounds like you are saying that you'd like to hire a tech to come to your home and debug and/or upgrade your computer. It has a lot of advantages (assuming you hire a reliable tech) such as peace of mind and not having to worry about getting something wrong. Of course, you have to pay for it. Did you have a person or company in mind?

As far as what Phoenix showed you...the machine that had been up for 6 days was a Windows machine and the machine that has been up for 46 days was Linux.

I have very few problems with XP crashing. I only blue screened my Windows XP Pro laptop when I upgraded SpySweeper one time and it was SpySweeper's fault (the tech crew at Webroot gave me the fix).

Having said that, at the end of the work week, I power down my Windows XP Pro workstation for the weekend but I just logout of my Debian (Linux) machine and leave it running. The only times I've powered it down is when I have to physically move from one office to another. It is very stable.

Of course, I leave my XP machines at home running for weeks on end without problems, so take it for what it's worth.

the windows machine only got rebooted so I could upgrade my CMD prompt font to the new consolas font found in longhorn, much easier on the eyes, but required a reboot coz its a registry hack :/