UPDATE: Windows is VERY unstable

[jaydee]

No really, mine is even worse than normal. It will boot up fine, but it will crash as soon as I open an application. I can close down things from the system tray but thats it, even windows won't open, I can't figure out anything I did to upset it, Any suggestions? Thanks for the help

Jim

edit:I'm running Win98SE

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Sounds like time for a format and reinstall.

 

[RichieZ]

Run w2k

 

[Valhalla1]

windows 9x is unstable.

windows NT 5 is stable as anything

 

[GD695372]

First reinstall. Then reinstall in another directory. Then rip out the old version of windows and reinstall. Then reformat and reinstall.

-John

P.S. He plans on running w2k part of the time already(just not all of it, framerates w/ radeon)

 

How long have you had it installed?
Do you know what a registry is?
Do you have any free hard drive space left?

If you let your car go 3 years with out an oil change, would you say your car was a hunk of junk?

 

[Delusion2001]

install win2k

 

[Boonesmi]

if you have that many problems with win9x then i doubt just switching to win2k will fix it, you probably have some kind of hardware problem

 

[FrogDog]

Windows is a little too general of a statement. 9x, yes, it's unstable as HELL. But win2k is like a rock.

 

[kami]

If it just sprung up all of the sudden it sounds like a CPU or RAM problem to me. Are they BSOD's, Illegal Operations, etc.?
This can be caused by bad RAM (or RAM running over it's designed frequency/CAS rating) or a CPU that's too hot or isn't getting enough voltage.

 

[duragezic]

If you format every 4-5 months, run scan disk, defrag, make sure hardware is configured properly, windows 9x isn't that bad. I pretty much never get crashes or blue screens unless it's some really weird program I'm running or a hardware incompatibility. I just don't like the memory management. Got to be rebooting every 8-10 hours or something because it just runs out of memory.

I would use win2k but it's not exactly the best with games and I'd be rebooting back into win9x and back to win2k so much to play games and stuff.

 

[tomcat]

LOL.. format every 4-5 months? Surely you jest. Get a real OS, seriously people, why struggle with 9x? win2k is much better, no need to shoot yourself in the foot.

 

[mjquilly]

If you have the right setup, win98 is fine. I had a Celery433 I built myself (good ol BX mobo's) that would go with out reboots for WEEKS with heavy use. I'm not saying that it's great, but blue screens and the such aren't necessarily the result of windows sucking.

 

[jaydee]

UPDATE: Ok, I have Linux Mandrake (2.2 kernel), that I run not very often, simply because of compatibily issues with mainstream software. I would love to get rid of 98SE alltogether, but that simply is not an option (that and what would I do with Linux at the next lan party?). Anyway, Linux took a real long time to boot and it did some filesystem checking which it does not normally do. I could not test the stability once on, because my new ms mouse won't work for some reason? My last USB intellemouse won't work in Win, or Linux. I was able to run Windows in safemode pretty well (other than the obvious drawbacks of safemode mode).

 

[KevinH]

I'm dying to upgrade to win2k. Only problem is that my stupid Earthlink dsl uses a proprietary "dialup" software that is not win2k compatible. Pisses me off. Anyhow, I'd agree with everyone's sentiment's Jim...with win98, I've been reformating every 4-6 months or so. It's one of the prices I pay for a shoddy OS.

 

[SuperSix]

Alt-F4 always works for me

 

[jaydee]

<< This can be caused by bad RAM (or RAM running over it's designed frequency/CAS rating) or a CPU that's too hot or isn't getting enough voltage. >>


Running 256MB of PC100 cas2 ECC Kingston, with RAMSink.
T-Bird 900 non-overclocked on an Abit KT7-RAID with 1.750 voltage. I'm around 110 farenhiet (sp?) when stressed, and 90 idle acounding to MBM ver4 .

 

[ForeverSilky]

maybe you just don't know how to properly install windows.

 

[tim0thy]

<< maybe you just don't know how to properly install windows >>



good 'ol diagnosis? problem is between computer monitor and chair? heh...

 

Win2k is better than Win9x but I would never call it &quot;rock solid.&quot; It crashes a hell of a lot more than WinNT 4.0 ever did. No bluescreens or anything, just lots of apps crash and do not respond well to being killed. This happens on all my Win2k installs, on four different machines, so I know it's not anything I am doing.