Misc. Help
The day the System Stopped Crashing
I've finally found a way to make my Windows 98SE computer stop crashing regularly...but there's just one problem...I don't know which of the things I did really contributed to it. I did find a CPU draining virus that used up all availible CPU power, but I doubt it had been there long. Hybris managed to infect our computer, but I had already disabled it and never thought to restore the infected files or remove the virus itself. Two backdoor viruses were also present, but one of them was only partially there.
I'm now stuck wondering whether it was just virus cleaning or if something else I did helped make it work better, so I'm going to try and tell everything significant I did that might have helped.
I'm listing these in order of suspected importance:
Checked for and cleaned ALL Viruses and ALL infected files, even though they had all been disabled.(Even an inactive virus can effect your system if the infected DLLs are loaded into memory or used by a program.) This can probably be done reasonably well with the Antivirus.com online scanner, HouseCall, and will probably have the most drastic effect if you've got infected files. I got a full-fledged virus scanner after figuring out that even if I never downloaded viruses, others who use the computer did.
Removed useless files from run menus(Programs/StartUp directory, Windows/CurrentVersion/Run, RunServices), configured most programs to not run when windows started, and then made icons to manually start any of those programs any time I wanted to.
Made a Start_up.bat file that loads start-up programs more slowly than Windows would.
(Start_up.html)
Limited Virtual Memory to 300MB.
Used Niresoft Task Manager to check for any suspicious files(and found some!). This is how I figured out I had the CPU draining virus so quickly. It had bymer.scanner in the Windows/Current Version/Run registry, and a name like that just seems to stand out. Bymer is that nasty CPU chomping sucker that rendered my system almost unusable for a total of about 30 minutes. I couldn't even get it to log on to our ISP with how much of the CPU it was using.
Sticky Keys
I've noticed that from time to time, the computer stops using keys correctly.
You'll press tab, and it'll switch programs, or you'll press X and it'll ask if you want to save your document before quitting.
You'll double-click a file, but it just selects it and deselects it.
Has this happen to you?
If so, here's the quick cure:
Press each of these buttons one at a time-
Caps Lock
Caps Lock
Menu Button(Shows a mouse-pointer over a drop-down menu)
Left Shift
Left Ctrl
Left Windows Button
Left Alt
Right Shift
Right Alt
Right Windows Button
Right Ctrl
Esc(Escape Button)
When Laptop PCMCIA cards don't work
This one took me a while to figure out.
Have you ever had a PCMCIA card just suddenly stop working on your laptop?
You're going along and everything's fine until a program crashes, or you take the computer out of suspend mode, then lo-and-behold your PCMCIA card just won't start up.
Removed and inserted it numerous times? Check.
Looked in the Device properties menu? Sure...but it says the PCMCIA slots aren't even working.
Reinstalled it's drivers? Check.
Restarted the computer? Absolutely.
Did it help? Nooooo....
If this once-in-a-while occurence drives you as nuts as it's driven me, here's what I think the solution is:
Restart your computer with a clean boot. This means going to "Start>Shut Down", selecting "Shut down", and pressing OK. Once it's all shut down, start the computer again. You should be able to use your cards again once this is done.
100% CPU usage....or is it?
I have been witness to this problem on my 98SE computer. With a CPU-usage-reader in hand, I ventured forth to find the problem with our computer....but the joke was on ME this time. I pondered the significance of 100% CPU usage for a while, and it even led me to make the Start_up.bat file I use for starting up files when the computer loads, but it didn't change anything.
This is more for technical users who may be wondering just what it is they have to fix to make it quit maxing out the CPU all the time. I've even seen a few people who commented on this exact problem, but didn't point out this document:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q227/1/31.ASP
Basically, this document says that the reading is false. Tricky bugger, isn't it? Without that problem, I'd have thought the CPU usage was fine and probably would have spent time looking somewhere else for the problems.
Internet Explorer 5.0+: Deleting Specific AutoComplete Entries(Forms,Username/Password)
This is a simple procedure that I simply failed to see or test before.
AutoComplete for forms and Username/Password fields can sometimes have entries with errors in them or unused entries. This makes the form take longer to load up and bad stuff like that, along with how some of the error-containing entries just get in the way of selecting the ones that work.
To delete one of the entries, go to the page with the form box that contains the entry or entries you want to delete. Click on the text box and press the Down arrow key. This should bring up the entire list for that box. Scroll to the item you want to get rid of and press the "Delete" key(It may just say "Del" on the key).
The entry will disappear and the box will go back to having no entry selected. Scroll down the list again if you want to delete other entries.
Please remember that if you delete a name you want to keep, you'll have to re-enter it and press the 'Submit' button for whatever is does for it to be saved again. Deleting names that have passwords will probably remove both and force you to enter them both again, but this can be useful if IE is screwing up and entering the password even if you select for it not to. In that case, you just re-enter the username and password with the password-saving feature turned off.
Personally, I'd suggest you leave all the search strings ever used in a search engine's box, just for the sake of being able to see if you've ever used it before so it can be re-stated for better matches, no matter how long afterwards it is searched for again.
Remember to be careful with this feature. Even though I'm a pack-rat when it comes to knowledge, it always seems that soon after I throw out something that 'Could' be useful, I find a reason why I need it...sometimes quite a while after I would be able to recover whatever it was.
