Windows 98 FAQ

The system is getting slower

Symptom: After upgrading to Win 98, the system seems to be getting slower and slower, and there is often a short-lived "solidification" phenomenon, as if someone is remotely controlling the computer system in the distance.

Analysis: Win 98 itself is not slow, dragging the system is a variety of small programs that Win 98 adds to the function, they accumulate together, taking up a lot of system resources. First of all, IE 4 is the culprit. It integrates with Win 98 to improve its startup speed, but it takes up more system resources, thus reducing the performance of the entire system. In IE4, the most popular resource is the active desktop. Although this desktop can display web components, the impact on CPU processing speed is also the most obvious. If a component such as JavaScript is used on the active desktop, it is not surprising that the system appears to be "solidified". In fact, the impact of the active desktop on system performance has been specially researched. The results show that the active desktop is indeed the main source of Win 98 performance degradation. In addition, if you install Microsoft Office, Win 98 will automatically load the "File Quick Find" program and other small utilities at startup. These programs are sometimes placed in the "Start" menu group>Start” folder, and some are loaded by changing the registry. No matter how you load it, it will take up some system resources. If the functions of these programs are not necessary for you, it is best to disable the system loading.

Countermeasure: The problem with the active desktop is better solved, just turn it off. For those applets that are automatically loaded, they can be selectively loaded as needed. A more reliable method is to use the system configuration utility that comes with Win 98, which can control the boot load in various ways. The procedure for calling this program is “Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information”, click “> Tools/System Configuration Utility”.

Maintenance Tips: In order to speed up the startup speed of Win 98 programs, you should often use the Defrag function to defragment the files on the hard disk. Win 98 also introduces the application startup acceleration function provided by Intel Corporation, which can save the frequently used programs to the highest reading speed on the hard disk. So don't ignore Defrag.

Win 98 always has hardware and can't go

Symptom: At the invitation of a friend, I will help him upgrade the system from Win 95 to Win 98. After an hour of suffering, I finally started Win. The first start of 98. However, it quickly became wrong, the sound card could not make a sound, Modem could not detect it, the screen color number was only 16 colors … … flipped out the driver disk of these devices, then installed, and then tested! No. Find a new driver on the Win 98 CD, no! I had to use another machine to download the latest drivers from the Internet. It was finally done, but it took me a long time.

Analysis: It is unfair to attribute all faults to Win98. Any upgrade of an operating system may cause hardware compatibility problems. If you read Microsoft's published hardware list before upgrading to Win98, you won't be surprised by the old hardware that Win98 doesn't recognize. As the latest operating system, in terms of hardware compatibility, more attention is paid to the latest hardware technologies and products. Due to the sharp increase in hardware manufacturers, Win98 usually only provides drivers for the main products of famous manufacturers. For other companies' products, they have to download the products themselves to the manufacturer's website. The clever way is that if your PC has been used for more than 1 year, before installing Win98, go to the Internet to download the latest drivers, and make a backup, leaving it to be used when installing Win98.

Countermeasures: When hardware compatibility issues occur after installing Win98, first determine which hardware is causing trouble. To do this, open the properties of the “My Computer'; icon to view the <;Device Manager" option. If a hardware is marked with a yellow question mark in front of it, or a red "X", there is a problem with this hardware. If the faulty hardware is supported, it is plug and play. The hardware item can be completely removed from the "Device Manager", restart Windows, Win98 will re-detect the hardware, the user can follow the prompts to load a new driver. If Win98 fails to re-detect the hardware, the hardware does not support Plug and Play. At this point, there are two ways to solve it. One is to use the “Add New Hardware” function in the Control Panel to manually install, and the other is to reinstall the entire operating system. This is no way. There is also a case where if there is sound in Win98 and there is no sound when playing games in DOS mode, it means that the DOS game program does not recognize the Windows driver. In this case, it can be solved by this method: directly in the start dialog of the start menu. Type “msconfig” to start the system configuration utility, edit Con—fig .sys and Autoexec .bat, and add the statement that loads the sound card DOS driver.

Maintenance Tips: To keep your hardware in good working order, you should use the latest drivers from the manufacturer. To determine the driver version number: Open “My Computer> Properties”, go to the <quo;Device Manager” option, double-click the device name you want to view, go to “Driver” The option can be the driver's version number or production date, at which point you can make a judgment as to whether to upgrade the driver.

Automatic Updates Bring Disasters

Symptom: Win 98 looks really attractive, so I am promoted. "Windows Upgrade Wizard" is a major feature of Win 98. According to Microsoft, with it, all the troubles of the operating system can be solved. Users can eliminate bugs in the system in a timely manner, constantly adding functions and making the system Stability will get better and better, giving people the feeling that it seems that world peace is just around the corner. However, when I used the "Windows Upgrade Wizard", I found that many applications installed in my system could not run normally. Does upgrading mean the elimination of old software?

Analysis: The latest is not necessarily the best. It turns out that Microsoft's upgrade patch also has a Beta version. If you use it to fix bugs, it's actually that the old bugs haven't gone to the new bug. In addition, after the system is upgraded, the association of some files will also change. For example, you used to play MP3 music with WinAmp, but after upgrading to Microsoft Media Player 5.0 or 6.0, it will grab control of MP3 files. When you double-click the MP3 file, the startup will no longer be WinAmp.

Countermeasures: Don't worry about whether others upgrade, as long as the current system can meet your needs steadily, don't consider upgrading. Even if the upgrade is necessary, you should read the instructions of the patch to understand the problems that may occur after the upgrade, especially to find out whether the patch is the official version or the test version. Also, look at the bulletin board at the site about the bug and you might get very helpful advice. On the other hand, not all upgrade processes are irreversible. Microsoft offers an anti-installation opportunity for most important upgrades. If you install a patch, update the device driver, or enhance the system tools, and find that the system is not working properly or the original system settings are damaged, you can run the "Windows Update Wizard uninstall" & rdquo; uninstall . To do this, click on the “Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information” program and use the “Tools/Update Wizard Uninstall” to safely uninstall the patches you added during the upgrade.

Maintenance Tips: Pay more attention to the announcements and instructions on the Microsoft Upgrade site to see if these upgrades are really good for you. In general, most upgrade patches are for special users. For ordinary users, as long as the original system is running well, you do not have to upgrade.

Hard disk capacity け煌淌

Symptom: My PC was bought two years ago. The capacity of the hard disk is only 1.2GB. It was big at the time. Now, Win 98 swallowed it. More than 200 megabytes, I also need to install Office 97, Photoshop, AutoCAD, the hard disk is not enough, do you have to add hard disk to install Win 98?

Analysis: For users who still use 1 to 2 GB hard drive, Win 98 is a huge monster. In the case of a typical installation, Win 98 requires 195MB of hard disk space, and a full installation requires 295MB of hard disk space. If you choose the safe uninstall function during installation, Win 98 will take 50~100MB to save the original system. In fact, Win 98 did not need such a large size, the reason for the bloated is that it integrates too many non-operating system components. For example, after integrating a full set of IE 4, it takes up nearly 40MB of space.

Countermeasures: First of all, using the disk cleaning tool provided by Win98, you can recycle old system, temporary files and the hard disk space occupied by the recycle bin by clicking “Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Cleanup Tool” ”. Next, use Win98's FAT32 converter to convert your hard disk partition format to FAT32 (if it was originally FAT16), which can increase your hard disk space by 10% to 15%. Finally, launch the “Add/Remove” program in the Control Panel to remove unused components from the system, especially non-critical files such as large and useless programs and desktop themes that come with IE4.

Maintenance Tips: Run the disk cleaning program regularly to save the less used data files in Zip format. It is not recommended to use the disk compression function of Win 98, which will make your system performance drop a lot.

Is the system out of control? After ぶ(19)矗鹤吧蟇in98, my system seems to be out of control. I tried to delete a program, but it is often not completely deleted; I want to use ACD—See to see the JPEG map. When I double-click the JPEG file, it starts with IE4; some programs that I don't want to use are always self-proclaimed at boot time. Run it up.

Analysis: The current software is self-righteous when it is installed. It always assumes that all types of files in the system need it to open. If you don't say hello to the user, you set yourself to multiple types. The default open program for files. And these software is very rogue, the installation is easy to uninstall, Win98 can not help them. What's more, it is forced to start at boot time, and it is not loaded by the “Startup” folder, so that users only have an urgent need.

Countermeasure: No matter how arrogant these softwares are, you can always find a way to deal with them. If a software does not have an uninstaller itself, and the "Add/Remove" function of the control panel cannot be uninstalled, the program is mostly running, especially in the background. For the program to automatically start at boot time, it can be controlled by the system configuration utility. To do this, click on “Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information” and select “Tools/System Configuration Utility” to go to the “Startup” tab and you will see a list of program names. , that is the project to be started at boot time, just remove the “X” in the check box to prevent the corresponding project from starting at boot time. If the relationship between the file and the application is changed, you can also quickly correct it by selecting a file of that type in the Explorer, holding down the Shift key and clicking the right mouse button to select the "Open with" dialog. New relationships can be established.

Maintenance Tips: When installing the software, try to use a custom installation, which can control the installation process of the new software, reduce or eliminate the changes to the original system settings during the installation process.