Reviving an Old Horse: Tips for Working with Windows 98

  • Thread starter Monique
  • Start date
In summary, Monique is having trouble adjusting to her new work computer, a Windows 98 machine that takes 15 minutes to start up and has not been checked for errors in 974 days. She is seeking advice on how to work with Windows 98 and discovered that it doesn't have a task manager and that running the antivirus slows down the computer even more. Monique also shares her experience of using public transportation in Europe.
  • #1
Monique
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At my past job I had this computer, with the latest processor and huge screen. I just had to think about starting some software, and *whoesh* it would already be there, so fast.

Now.. now I have been assigned a work horse from the 19th century.. I started it up yesterday.. it took me 15 (!) minutes to get grandpa to work for me.

It is actually not a very old computer, it has Windows 98 on it. The last time the HD has been checked for errors is 974 days ago..


Now, I need your guys help (I'm afraid the message would get lost in such a long post :P). I have no idea how to work with Windows 98, is there a task manager? What I found to be the problem is that there seem to be programs running in the background, which take up all the CPU (I think). The reason the HD hasn't been checked in so long is that it gets interrupted continuously by a program writing to C (no clue what it could be) so it has to restart continously and after a while gives up.

I ran a virus scan, but nothing turned up.. any suggestion? Besides bringing my notebook, which is a pain to bring in rush hour. I spent 40 minutes in the train today with 6 people on 1 sq meter (meter is 3 ft). There were three men standing in front of me, one foot away, literally, a foot inbetween.. they kept dropping the newspaper on my head while turning the pages, gee. I was sitting at the first stairstep, with the legs of two people besides me who were sitting two steps higher, oh the comfort.. After which I was lucky enough to jump as the last fitting person into the subway.. after which 4 people squirmed in while the doors were closing.. and people complain about having to sit in the luxery of their car.. moving along at a relaxing slow pace.. but that is another topic :P
 
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  • #2
Originally posted by Monique
I spent 40 minutes in the train today with 6 people on 1 sq meter (meter is 3 ft). There were three men standing in front of me, one foot away, literally, a foot inbetween.. they kept dropping the newspaper on my head while turning the pages, gee. I was sitting at the first stairstep, with the legs of two people besides me who were sitting two steps higher, oh the comfort.. After which I was lucky enough to jump as the last fitting person into the subway.. after which 4 people squirmed in while the doors were closing.. and people complain about having to sit in the luxery of their car.. moving along at a relaxing slow pace.. but that is another topic :P
At least you didn't get groped. I always get groped. :frown:

- Warren
 
  • #3


Originally posted by chroot
At least you didn't get groped. I always get groped. :frown:

- Warren
Says who? :wink: j/k
 
  • #4
Ahh, the memories. I remember back in the day when i ran windows 98. Had to be the greatest pile of manurer ever created by the Microsoft Corporation. Now to address your concerns:

1) Unfortunetly, Windows 98 doesn't come with a great task manager, if you can even call it that. To get access to it simply do the three finger salute - Ctrl+Alt+Delete. It will give you the names of the current running applications. Once there, you can kill an application. Hopefully windows won't lock up in the process and have you reboot.

2) If you have a slow computer, turn off the antivirus. It is the most processor consuming application because it is constantly interupting other processes to analyze your data. Just run it when you read emails and you should be fine.

3) I'm sorry you have to utilize public transportation. Why don't you try to keep a job for a least a week and save up to purchase a car. . j/k. Just make sure the next time you get on a train/subway to bring a taser and give the person next to you a good shock if they touch you.
 
  • #5
1. I'll try that.. the computer has had the nasty habit of vreezing when I tried that manuver.. but at that time I had explorer running.. I'll try it after start up.

2. I tried to find a way to shut it off, but I really couldn't find anything that indictated it was active, I'll try again (I am working in a highly secured hospital network, but apparently they still get virusses from laptop users that plugin locally and thus spread virusses from within, maybe that's why there is something monitoring the computer)

3. Car, you know how much gasoline costs in Europe?? You also know that at rush hour all the driveways are basically parkways? AND did you know, public transportation is free for students?

You might not realize it, but here people prefer to use public transportation over driving a car, parking is expensive, if you can find a spot to park in that is

At least it is not that bad I have to sit ON TOP of the train, as in some parts of this world.. can you imagine, me climbing up on top of the train, lol
 
  • #6
Originally posted by Monique
3. Car, you know how much gasoline costs in Europe??

Isn't that a good excuse to come back to the United States. :wink:

Originally posted by Monique
I am working in a highly secured hospital network

Hmm. Why don't you steal the medical records and ransom them off for a couple hundred million. You could buy your own private island!
 
  • #7
Well, I know your plight. I've got an ancient pc at work, also with Win98.

Most your questions have been answered, I just wanted to point out the pointlessness of trying to improve the pc.

Likely, it is short on ram. Sounds like the problem to me. Many times people will get out cheaper that way. You might try clearing the Temp internet files, making sure there is enough Vmemory, etc.

But basically, the best advice I can give you is when the pc grinds to a halt in the midst of an important operation, gently carress it. Machines have feelings to you know, sometimes it just needs a gentle touch and a few loving words (AHHH YOU @$*&*%$ Pile of circuits).

Your last hope would be to intentionally set it up for failure, and hope for a better model replacement.
 
  • #8
Megashwan,

1)"make sure there is enough Vmemory"

Are you crazy! Virtual Memory is the slowest type of memory known to man. It utilizes the hard drive as RAM, which is only 1000 times slower.

2)" intentionally set it up for failure"

Excellent Idea! Monique, try to break something like the cdrom or if possible the motherboard. Then they have to get you a new computer (if your not fired) .
 
  • #9
Hey! Quit bashing Win98! That is all I run on my home systems, works fine for me!

Monique, is this system connected to a LAN? I found that sometimes to get defrag to work I needed to pull the LAN cable. That seemed to stop some of the HD acesses that kept restarting the defrag.

Kill everything in the systray, use the task manager to kill all unnecessary apps. (There are like 2 necessary window applications, unfortunatly I cannot recall them now, systray? and explorer perhaps.

If you are still having troubles get a copy of Regclean note that it is free ware. And use it to clean up your registry.

Good luck

PS
I was wondering if the whole train was packed or just the square meter surrounding you? ;)

Edit:
Oh yeah, Win98 REQUIRES Virtual memory, no matter how much memory you have on board. Let windows manage it, it is just simpler that way.
 
  • #10
Integral, Have you thought about switching to Linux. It is the best thing since sliced bread!
 
  • #11
Is there a StarCraft package that runs on Linux?
 
  • #12
Originally posted by Integral
Is there a StarCraft package that runs on Linux?

yes, that's my biggest problem too... not to mention Monkey Island
 
  • #13
You can run vmware under linux to create a virtual windows machine. From there you should be able to run starcraft and monkey island.

WineX can also be used to run these games. Monkey Island is supposed to work nearly perfectly, but starcraft has some issues, especially with network capabilities.
 
  • #14
yes I had vmware at work on an 800MHz AMD/512 Mb. It took 2 min to open Internet Exploder, and about 5 to open Word .
At home I have an even older system. It's easier for me to just have Win98 for games and some other ocasional applications and Linux and just switch between the two by restarting.
 
  • #15
Originally posted by megashawn
Your last hope would be to intentionally set it up for failure, and hope for a better model replacement.


Welll... isn't that funny

I was turning off the computer off yesterday evening, after 5 min I get the command that it is now safe to turn off the computer, I push the button..

nothing happens..

the button is now stuck, can't turn it off anymore

that was my third day at work..

already messed up the precious computer..

now I just turn off the monitor at the end of the day
 
  • #16
Originally posted by dduardo
2)" intentionally set it up for failure"

Excellent Idea! Monique, try to break something like the cdrom or if possible the motherboard. Then they have to get you a new computer (if your not fired) .
Well, as you can see I've just done that.. now just wait for the circuits to overload and melt.. or something
 
  • #17
Originally posted by Integral
Monique, is this system connected to a LAN? I found that sometimes to get defrag to work I needed to pull the LAN cable. That seemed to stop some of the HD acesses that kept restarting the defrag.

Kill everything in the systray, use the task manager to kill all unnecessary apps. (There are like 2 necessary window applications, unfortunatly I cannot recall them now, systray? and explorer perhaps.

If you are still having troubles get a copy of Regclean note that it is free ware. And use it to clean up your registry.

Good luck

PS
I was wondering if the whole train was packed or just the square meter surrounding you? ;)
I'll try the LAN thingy, it would be nice to scan the HD after 3.5 years.. BUT I saw that they had gotten the defrag to work, that was done a week ago or sth..

p.s. I am not sure, I was afraid to look up
 
  • #18
If you boot the PC into Safe Mode you should be able to defrag and/or scan the drive without difficulty. This would be simpler than shutting down programs, processes, unplugging cables, etc, and it has never failed to work for me to date.

How much memory does your computer have, how fast is the CPU?
 
  • #19
Monique, just convince your boss to convert to linux. That will solve the problem.:wink:
 
  • #20
Linux? Didn't you notice that in a previous thread I spelled it Lunix? That is about as much as I know about it

I guess the hospital doesn't have any money to buy new computers for the researchers, all the money is going to the doctors
 
  • #21
Monique, that's the beauty of linux. It's FREE.

Free as in beer because you can download a copy from the various distributions.

AND

Free as in freedom because if you don't like something or you want to add something, you can modify the source.

Here is a list of the advantages of linux over windows.

- A lot more secure
- A lot more stable
- Faster
- Extremely customizable

To be honest there are some disadvantages

- Medium Learning Curve
- Not as many applications

Linux is the fastest growing operating system in the world. There are also more Linux users then there are Mac.

To get started all you need is an internet connection and a cd burner. If you don't have a cd burner you can always buy a distro from the store.

I recommend, just for testing purposes, to get a distribution called knoppix. You can get over here ( http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44 [Broken] ). Use Easy cd creator or nero to burn. Boot from the cd to run linux.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #22
Originally posted by dduardo
Monique, that's the beauty of linux. It's FREE.

Free as in beer because you can download a copy from the various distributions.

AND

Free as in freedom because if you don't like something or you want to add something, you can modify the source.

Here is a list of the advantages of linux over windows.

- A lot more secure
- A lot more stable
- Faster
- Extremely customizable

To be honest there are some disadvantages

- Medium Learning Curve
- Not as many applications

Linux is the fastest growing operating system in the world. There are also more Linux users then there are Mac.

To get started all you need is an internet connection and a cd burner. If you don't have a cd burner you can always buy a distro from the store.

I recommend, just for testing purposes, to get a distribution called knoppix. You can get over here ( http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44 [Broken] ). Use Easy cd creator or nero to burn. Boot from the cd to run linux.
Nah Knoppix-std is better and also fits on one cd
download here --> http://www.knoppix-std.org/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #23
Tweek, she isn't some elite network securities expert (My apologies if you are Monique ) looking to run honeypots and packet sniffers. I'm just given some advice so she hopefuly gives linux a try and has a pleasant experience. Don't try to bombard her with kernel hacking and misc perl scripts.

mv Tweek dev/null
 
  • #24
Originally posted by dduardo
mv Tweek dev/null

that's mean
 
  • #25
I know why did he have to say that? Someone asked for help and I offered advice on a product that I use. I'm very happy with the product and found it easier to use then the standard knoppix. I could understand this if I recomended freebsd or something that had nothing to do with the topic.

So just move me into a black hole dduardo!
dduardo is way to 1337 for me! Ooooh he hurt my feelings
 
Last edited:

1. How can I revive my old Windows 98 computer?

To revive an old Windows 98 computer, you can start by cleaning out any dust or debris from the inside of the computer and making sure all the hardware components are functioning properly. You can also try updating the drivers and running a disk cleanup to free up space on your hard drive.

2. Is it still possible to find updates and support for Windows 98?

No, Microsoft ended support for Windows 98 in 2006, so there are no official updates or support available. However, there are still some third-party websites and forums that may offer tips and solutions for common issues with Windows 98.

3. Can I upgrade my Windows 98 computer to a newer operating system?

It is possible to upgrade from Windows 98 to a newer operating system, but it may require purchasing a new license and installation media. Additionally, your old hardware may not be compatible with newer operating systems, so it's important to check before attempting an upgrade.

4. How can I keep my Windows 98 computer secure?

Since there are no longer any official updates or support for Windows 98, it is important to take extra precautions to keep your computer secure. This includes installing antivirus software, using a firewall, and being cautious when downloading and installing programs from the internet.

5. Is it worth it to revive an old Windows 98 computer?

This ultimately depends on your personal needs and preferences. If you have sentimental value attached to the computer or if it still serves its purpose for basic tasks, then reviving it may be worth it. However, if you require newer programs and features, it may be more practical to invest in a newer computer with a more recent operating system.

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