Clean Up

The following may be helpful if you have upgraded from Win 95 to Win 98 without a clean install. I upgraded from Win95 to 98 and had a lot of problems at first. Once I cleaned my system up it has run well. I have a Pentium 166 mmx (slightly overclocked to 200), 64 MB of RAM with two HD's and a US Robotics 56 K modem. I find my system runs as fast as most 233's and boots up with 94% system resources free. The key is regular disk maintenance.

You may wish to print these out for easy reference

1) Do you have Tweakui installed? If not there is a version on the Win98 CD under tools\reskit\powertoy however that version seems to have a couple of glitches. I suggest you download the version found at this site Tweakui For 98 as it is a functional
version. Download into a folder then right click the tweakui.inf file and install. It will appear in your Control Panel

2) Open Control Panel ->Tweakui->IE4 Tab and uncheck "Active Desktop enabled"

3) Open Control Panel ->Internet Properties->Advanced Tab and check box "Browse in a new process"

4) Right click Start Button and select Explore then go to View->Folder Options->General Tab and select "Classic Style". And while there go to the View Tab and check box "Remember each folders view settings" and check radio button "Show all files"

5) Go to Start->Run and type scandisk and hit Enter then run Scandisk in "Thorough Mode" for both drives. (this may take awhile)

6) Go to Start->Run and type scanregw to check for registry errors. When prompted to backup again choose "Yes".

(Backups are made daily and reside in a hidden folder at C:\Windows\Sysbckup in the form of .cab files. they can be restored by going to Start->Shutdown->"Restart in Ms-Dos mode". At prompt type scanreg /restore then select the dated backup to restore. (Past 5 saves are displayed. Those that have been started will say Started beside them. A backup you create will say "Not Started " if it has never  been started. Choose to restore the most recent copy that worked, windows will then reboot. If the registry backup is bad then scanreg will abort and reboot using the registry you were using prior to booting to  Ms-Dos.)

7) Go to Start->Shutdown->"Restart in Ms-Dos mode". At the prompt type scanreg /fix  when finished type exit at the prompt to reboot windows.

8) Turn off your Screen Saver and any Virus Checker you have. Go to Start->Run and type defrag and hit Enter. Select "All drives" from the drop down box and under Settings button choose "Rearrange Program files.....". This may take quite awhile as defrag is rearranging your system and program files to start faster. If you have programs refreshing the screen or working in the background then defrag seems to restart and restart. It also seems to hang at about 10% as it optimizes files. I have a 1.9 GB and a 4.1 GB HDs. It takes 2-3 hours for both to defrag. The first time took about twice as long.

8) Go to this site and download RegClean 4.1a which works with Windows 98 and use it to fix any errors it finds

9) Go to this site and download Easy Cleaner 1.4 an excellent freeware cleaner. Use it to remove invalid references in your registry

10) Make sure you have the latest drivers for all of your hardware by visiting the manufacturers sites. This is especially important for your video and sound card drivers as they can cause some funky things to happen if not updated

11) If you have more than one hard drive go to Control Panel->System Properties->Performance Tab->Virtual Memory Button and check "Let me specify my own settings". Then choose your fastest drive. Leave min and max settings alone.

12) If you have 64 MB + of Ram then while still under System Properties go to File Button-> Hard Disk Tab and select "Network Server" as Typical role of this computer

Instead of Norton CrashGuard I use TraySaver TraySaver and instead of CleanSweep I use Easy Cleaner 1.4 Both are freeware - TraySaver written by a 15 year old and Easy Cleaner by a 14 year old. They are simple to use and do what they say they will do, unlike some of the more "sophisticated software" <G>