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#1
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Whoa. What was that? 98 load failure and....
All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a
short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
#2
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Did you actually start in Safe Mode, or did you choose Normal Mode
instead? If you went into Safe Mode, that would account for most, if not all, of your problems. Safe Mode doesn't load normal drivers. Video is lowest resolution and performance. You also have no networking support unless you chose Safe Mode w/ Networking. It also causes the Start Menu to switch to Large buttons and that has to be changed back once you go into Normal Mode. The "Restore" option you're looking for is done by booting to Command Prompt Only and then running the following: SMARTDRV enter SCANREG /RESTORE enter (Space after SCANREG) Choose backup based upon date, not filename. Choose most recent one from *before* the problem started. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
#3
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When I restarted after the laod failure the computer went to the Safe
Mode, Normal Mode, etc., option screen. Left it on option 3 (Safe Mode) and 'enter'ed. Safe Mode is where I got the real large solitaire, large icons, and the bum internet. Then I restarted (startshut downrestart) and got the normal mode and the re-sized/re-arranged icons and smaller windows and ran the different scans. Will probably have to re-size a window and 'Like Current Window' again. Bin There and Dun Dat before. Had second thoughts about restarting again and checked for replies before doing anything more. Haven't tried you're Command Prompt Only, SMARTDRV, etc. suggestion yet. That's next but will print an unfinished letter to my sister first. I think thats the only thing I saved yesturday. Just got a couple of updates from Spy Bot and/or AVG and/or Ad Aware, etc. Will rerun those. Thanks. Will post back after trying my hand at restore. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... Did you actually start in Safe Mode, or did you choose Normal Mode instead? If you went into Safe Mode, that would account for most, if not all, of your problems. Safe Mode doesn't load normal drivers. Video is lowest resolution and performance. You also have no networking support unless you chose Safe Mode w/ Networking. It also causes the Start Menu to switch to Large buttons and that has to be changed back once you go into Normal Mode. The "Restore" option you're looking for is done by booting to Command Prompt Only and then running the following: SMARTDRV enter SCANREG /RESTORE enter (Space after SCANREG) Choose backup based upon date, not filename. Choose most recent one from *before* the problem started. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
#4
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"keith" wrote in message
... When I restarted after the laod failure the computer went to the Safe Mode, Normal Mode, etc., option screen. Left it on option 3 (Safe Mode) and 'enter'ed. Safe Mode is where I got the real large solitaire, large icons, and the bum internet. That's Safe Mode doing what Safe Mode does. Safe Mode loads minimal drivers, minimal background applications. It's not meant for normal use, it's for trouble-shooting. Your Load Failure prompted the system to suggest a Safe Mode trouble-shooting of the failure. Then I restarted (startshut downrestart) and got the normal mode and the re-sized/re-arranged icons and smaller windows and ran the different scans. Will probably have to re-size a window and 'Like Current Window' again. Bin There and Dun Dat before. Check to see if your usual video resolution is changed by booting into Safe Mode and then back to Normal Mode. Had second thoughts about restarting again and checked for replies before doing anything more. Haven't tried you're Command Prompt Only, SMARTDRV, etc. suggestion yet. That's next but will print an unfinished letter to my sister first. I think thats the only thing I saved yesturday. Just got a couple of updates from Spy Bot and/or AVG and/or Ad Aware, etc. Will rerun those. Thanks. Will post back after trying my hand at restore. The Start menu items will be "large icons" after returning from Safe Mode to Normal Mode . It's always like that, and there's nothing to fix. It's definitely a pain, but there's no remedy that I know of. Just use Taskbar & Start Menu settings to switch back to Small icons. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... Did you actually start in Safe Mode, or did you choose Normal Mode instead? If you went into Safe Mode, that would account for most, if not all, of your problems. Safe Mode doesn't load normal drivers. Video is lowest resolution and performance. You also have no networking support unless you chose Safe Mode w/ Networking. It also causes the Start Menu to switch to Large buttons and that has to be changed back once you go into Normal Mode. The "Restore" option you're looking for is done by booting to Command Prompt Only and then running the following: SMARTDRV enter SCANREG /RESTORE enter (Space after SCANREG) Choose backup based upon date, not filename. Choose most recent one from *before* the problem started. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
#5
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Well, I stumbled and fumbled into Command Prompt Only and had a short
list of dates to choose from. One was today the 16th and the others were the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Picked the 15th. When I got back to the desktop, AVG was missing from the sys tray by the clock but AVG was checking the boot sequence and I could 'find' numerous AVG listings with startfindAVG. That seemed odd and thought I'd try another date.Had a heck of a time getting back to Command Prompt Only for another date (this is the machine that doesn't find the main drive on first try and needs F1 to continue) and it turns out the 13th, 14th, and 15th were JULY '04. If I hold F8 or Ctrl during boot the sytem beeps like a stuck key when it gets to the 'F1 to continue' stage so I release the F8 or Ctrl key and it gets tricky or I get lucky getting back to the start up menu with the safe mode, normal mode, etc options. I swear there are only the four dates to choose from; the three from last July and the one from earlier today. Picked the one from earlier today to get the AVG icon back. Don't know what my next move will be or should be. Have been tempted for a few months to get a newer used machine. Maybe thats the move. Or maybe I'll just watch tonights NHL / Red Wings game and sleep on the computer problem and try again in the morning. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... "keith" wrote in message ... When I restarted after the laod failure the computer went to the Safe Mode, Normal Mode, etc., option screen. Left it on option 3 (Safe Mode) and 'enter'ed. Safe Mode is where I got the real large solitaire, large icons, and the bum internet. That's Safe Mode doing what Safe Mode does. Safe Mode loads minimal drivers, minimal background applications. It's not meant for normal use, it's for trouble-shooting. Your Load Failure prompted the system to suggest a Safe Mode trouble-shooting of the failure. Then I restarted (startshut downrestart) and got the normal mode and the re-sized/re-arranged icons and smaller windows and ran the different scans. Will probably have to re-size a window and 'Like Current Window' again. Bin There and Dun Dat before. Check to see if your usual video resolution is changed by booting into Safe Mode and then back to Normal Mode. Had second thoughts about restarting again and checked for replies before doing anything more. Haven't tried you're Command Prompt Only, SMARTDRV, etc. suggestion yet. That's next but will print an unfinished letter to my sister first. I think thats the only thing I saved yesturday. Just got a couple of updates from Spy Bot and/or AVG and/or Ad Aware, etc. Will rerun those. Thanks. Will post back after trying my hand at restore. The Start menu items will be "large icons" after returning from Safe Mode to Normal Mode . It's always like that, and there's nothing to fix. It's definitely a pain, but there's no remedy that I know of. Just use Taskbar & Start Menu settings to switch back to Small icons. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... Did you actually start in Safe Mode, or did you choose Normal Mode instead? If you went into Safe Mode, that would account for most, if not all, of your problems. Safe Mode doesn't load normal drivers. Video is lowest resolution and performance. You also have no networking support unless you chose Safe Mode w/ Networking. It also causes the Start Menu to switch to Large buttons and that has to be changed back once you go into Normal Mode. The "Restore" option you're looking for is done by booting to Command Prompt Only and then running the following: SMARTDRV enter SCANREG /RESTORE enter (Space after SCANREG) Choose backup based upon date, not filename. Choose most recent one from *before* the problem started. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
#6
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First of all, I don't think you really needed a Registry Restore, and
that's what SCANREG /RESTORE does. (Also restores backed up copies of other primary configuration files like MSDOS.SYS, WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI. It does *not* restore any other files unless you specifically tell it to using SCANREG.INI. The only way to get that kind of backup in Windows 98 is to use a backup or imaging utility.) Since their wasn't likely anything wrong with your Registry that couldn't be fixed with the methods I already described (Display Settings and/or Taskbar and Start Menu settings), there was no real need to do a SCANREG /RESTORE. However, when you did the procedure, it saved the existing files in a file called RBBAD.CAB in C:\Windows\SYSBCKUP (a Hidden folder.) Was that by chance the name of the name of the backup that you restored last, the one from earlier today, FEB. 16, 2005? Or did it have a name like RB003.CAB, with three digits in place of BAD? That you only had old backups suggests that your automatic Registry Checker (SCANREGW) must have been disabled. Let me introduce you to MSCONFIG, aka System Configuration Utility. You get there by typing MSCONFIG into the Start\Run box. Once the app pops up, before you do *anything*, look, just look, at what's checked, unchecked and/or grayed on the General Panel. Then look at the Startup tab. Write down which items are disabled (aren't checked) if any. You don't need to write down the whole command line, just the names, so you know what to turn back off later if needs be. Important Note: When writing down disabled items, take note, also, if any that are disabled has a twin that is enabled. Back on the General tab, if any of the other items under "Selective Startup" (besides Startup Programs) are checked but grayed, write down which ones, then go to each one's corresponding tab and look for unchecked lines. Write down what each of those unchecked lines, if any, says (I think you have to click on the +plus sign by the checkbox to see the lines themselves.) When you're sure you have made a note of all disabled items (anything that's unchecked on any of the tabs), choose Normal Startup on the General tab. Next, to make getting into the Startup Menu easy (where Safe Mode, Command Line Only, etc. launch from), click on the Advanced button on the General tab of MSCONFIG and check "Enable Startup Menu". You can either leave it that way, or disable it when you don't need the Startup Menu, or I can tell you a couple of tricks for making it appear at every boot, but for a shorter time than the default 30 seconds. Click OK to get back to General tab. Finally, click OK but *do_not* restart when prompted to. Next, run System Information (MSINFO32) from the Start\Run box. Expand (click the + sign by) Software Environment, then click on Startup Programs. Click anywhere in the right-hand pane, then press Ctrl-A. Then press Ctrl-C. Then open a reply to this post and use Ctrl-V to paste in the Startup info. Go back to the top of the message and add your list of what was disabled in MSCONFIG before you re-enabled Normal Startup. Close MSINFO32 (System Information), then run MSCONFIG again and disable all of the items from your previous list. You want to put it back the way it was until we can comment on the list, in case one or more things *need* to be disabled. EXCEPTION: If there were two of an item in MSCONFIG Startup tab, those twins I told you to take note of if there was one enabled and one disabled, and there is now only one in the list (enabled), leave it enabled. When there's one enabled and one disabled, that indicates that it was at one time disabled using MSCONFIG, but then re-enabled using settings from elsewhere. Until you re-enable all, there will be two entries, one enabled and one disabled, but when you re-enable all, the duplications disappear. Finally, send the post. To recap: The effects you saw that caused you to write us in the first place are probably the usual effects of a visit to Safe Mode. You should be able to put them back the way they belong using StartSettingsTaskbar and Start Menu or StartSettingsControl PanelDisplay, Settings tab. You *probably* didn't need a Registry restore, but so long as you really restored back a copy from today, you're OK. You did, right? Restore a backup dated today? Once you've checked the locations I mentioned in order to change the display settings back to what they should be, and you have posted the startup list for review, along with anything that is still bothering you with the display and layout of your system after using the methods I suggested for remedy, we can offer suggestions as to what more needs to be done. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... Well, I stumbled and fumbled into Command Prompt Only and had a short list of dates to choose from. One was today the 16th and the others were the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Picked the 15th. When I got back to the desktop, AVG was missing from the sys tray by the clock but AVG was checking the boot sequence and I could 'find' numerous AVG listings with startfindAVG. That seemed odd and thought I'd try another date.Had a heck of a time getting back to Command Prompt Only for another date (this is the machine that doesn't find the main drive on first try and needs F1 to continue) and it turns out the 13th, 14th, and 15th were JULY '04. If I hold F8 or Ctrl during boot the sytem beeps like a stuck key when it gets to the 'F1 to continue' stage so I release the F8 or Ctrl key and it gets tricky or I get lucky getting back to the start up menu with the safe mode, normal mode, etc options. I swear there are only the four dates to choose from; the three from last July and the one from earlier today. Picked the one from earlier today to get the AVG icon back. Don't know what my next move will be or should be. Have been tempted for a few months to get a newer used machine. Maybe thats the move. Or maybe I'll just watch tonights NHL / Red Wings game and sleep on the computer problem and try again in the morning. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... "keith" wrote in message ... When I restarted after the laod failure the computer went to the Safe Mode, Normal Mode, etc., option screen. Left it on option 3 (Safe Mode) and 'enter'ed. Safe Mode is where I got the real large solitaire, large icons, and the bum internet. That's Safe Mode doing what Safe Mode does. Safe Mode loads minimal drivers, minimal background applications. It's not meant for normal use, it's for trouble-shooting. Your Load Failure prompted the system to suggest a Safe Mode trouble-shooting of the failure. Then I restarted (startshut downrestart) and got the normal mode and the re-sized/re-arranged icons and smaller windows and ran the different scans. Will probably have to re-size a window and 'Like Current Window' again. Bin There and Dun Dat before. Check to see if your usual video resolution is changed by booting into Safe Mode and then back to Normal Mode. Had second thoughts about restarting again and checked for replies before doing anything more. Haven't tried you're Command Prompt Only, SMARTDRV, etc. suggestion yet. That's next but will print an unfinished letter to my sister first. I think thats the only thing I saved yesturday. Just got a couple of updates from Spy Bot and/or AVG and/or Ad Aware, etc. Will rerun those. Thanks. Will post back after trying my hand at restore. The Start menu items will be "large icons" after returning from Safe Mode to Normal Mode . It's always like that, and there's nothing to fix. It's definitely a pain, but there's no remedy that I know of. Just use Taskbar & Start Menu settings to switch back to Small icons. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... Did you actually start in Safe Mode, or did you choose Normal Mode instead? If you went into Safe Mode, that would account for most, if not all, of your problems. Safe Mode doesn't load normal drivers. Video is lowest resolution and performance. You also have no networking support unless you chose Safe Mode w/ Networking. It also causes the Start Menu to switch to Large buttons and that has to be changed back once you go into Normal Mode. The "Restore" option you're looking for is done by booting to Command Prompt Only and then running the following: SMARTDRV enter SCANREG /RESTORE enter (Space after SCANREG) Choose backup based upon date, not filename. Choose most recent one from *before* the problem started. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
#7
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Wow. Thanks for your most generous reply(ies). Might take a while to get
thru the steps and get back to you. What am I doing up at four in the morning? Maybe it was the midnight coffee. Might as well have some more. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... First of all, I don't think you really needed a Registry Restore, and that's what SCANREG /RESTORE does. (Also restores backed up copies of other primary configuration files like MSDOS.SYS, WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI. It does *not* restore any other files unless you specifically tell it to using SCANREG.INI. The only way to get that kind of backup in Windows 98 is to use a backup or imaging utility.) Since their wasn't likely anything wrong with your Registry that couldn't be fixed with the methods I already described (Display Settings and/or Taskbar and Start Menu settings), there was no real need to do a SCANREG /RESTORE. However, when you did the procedure, it saved the existing files in a file called RBBAD.CAB in C:\Windows\SYSBCKUP (a Hidden folder.) Was that by chance the name of the name of the backup that you restored last, the one from earlier today, FEB. 16, 2005? Or did it have a name like RB003.CAB, with three digits in place of BAD? That you only had old backups suggests that your automatic Registry Checker (SCANREGW) must have been disabled. Let me introduce you to MSCONFIG, aka System Configuration Utility. You get there by typing MSCONFIG into the Start\Run box. Once the app pops up, before you do *anything*, look, just look, at what's checked, unchecked and/or grayed on the General Panel. Then look at the Startup tab. Write down which items are disabled (aren't checked) if any. You don't need to write down the whole command line, just the names, so you know what to turn back off later if needs be. Important Note: When writing down disabled items, take note, also, if any that are disabled has a twin that is enabled. Back on the General tab, if any of the other items under "Selective Startup" (besides Startup Programs) are checked but grayed, write down which ones, then go to each one's corresponding tab and look for unchecked lines. Write down what each of those unchecked lines, if any, says (I think you have to click on the +plus sign by the checkbox to see the lines themselves.) When you're sure you have made a note of all disabled items (anything that's unchecked on any of the tabs), choose Normal Startup on the General tab. Next, to make getting into the Startup Menu easy (where Safe Mode, Command Line Only, etc. launch from), click on the Advanced button on the General tab of MSCONFIG and check "Enable Startup Menu". You can either leave it that way, or disable it when you don't need the Startup Menu, or I can tell you a couple of tricks for making it appear at every boot, but for a shorter time than the default 30 seconds. Click OK to get back to General tab. Finally, click OK but *do_not* restart when prompted to. Next, run System Information (MSINFO32) from the Start\Run box. Expand (click the + sign by) Software Environment, then click on Startup Programs. Click anywhere in the right-hand pane, then press Ctrl-A. Then press Ctrl-C. Then open a reply to this post and use Ctrl-V to paste in the Startup info. Go back to the top of the message and add your list of what was disabled in MSCONFIG before you re-enabled Normal Startup. Close MSINFO32 (System Information), then run MSCONFIG again and disable all of the items from your previous list. You want to put it back the way it was until we can comment on the list, in case one or more things *need* to be disabled. EXCEPTION: If there were two of an item in MSCONFIG Startup tab, those twins I told you to take note of if there was one enabled and one disabled, and there is now only one in the list (enabled), leave it enabled. When there's one enabled and one disabled, that indicates that it was at one time disabled using MSCONFIG, but then re-enabled using settings from elsewhere. Until you re-enable all, there will be two entries, one enabled and one disabled, but when you re-enable all, the duplications disappear. Finally, send the post. To recap: The effects you saw that caused you to write us in the first place are probably the usual effects of a visit to Safe Mode. You should be able to put them back the way they belong using StartSettingsTaskbar and Start Menu or StartSettingsControl PanelDisplay, Settings tab. You *probably* didn't need a Registry restore, but so long as you really restored back a copy from today, you're OK. You did, right? Restore a backup dated today? Once you've checked the locations I mentioned in order to change the display settings back to what they should be, and you have posted the startup list for review, along with anything that is still bothering you with the display and layout of your system after using the methods I suggested for remedy, we can offer suggestions as to what more needs to be done. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... Well, I stumbled and fumbled into Command Prompt Only and had a short list of dates to choose from. One was today the 16th and the others were the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Picked the 15th. When I got back to the desktop, AVG was missing from the sys tray by the clock but AVG was checking the boot sequence and I could 'find' numerous AVG listings with startfindAVG. That seemed odd and thought I'd try another date.Had a heck of a time getting back to Command Prompt Only for another date (this is the machine that doesn't find the main drive on first try and needs F1 to continue) and it turns out the 13th, 14th, and 15th were JULY '04. If I hold F8 or Ctrl during boot the sytem beeps like a stuck key when it gets to the 'F1 to continue' stage so I release the F8 or Ctrl key and it gets tricky or I get lucky getting back to the start up menu with the safe mode, normal mode, etc options. I swear there are only the four dates to choose from; the three from last July and the one from earlier today. Picked the one from earlier today to get the AVG icon back. Don't know what my next move will be or should be. Have been tempted for a few months to get a newer used machine. Maybe thats the move. Or maybe I'll just watch tonights NHL / Red Wings game and sleep on the computer problem and try again in the morning. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... "keith" wrote in message ... When I restarted after the laod failure the computer went to the Safe Mode, Normal Mode, etc., option screen. Left it on option 3 (Safe Mode) and 'enter'ed. Safe Mode is where I got the real large solitaire, large icons, and the bum internet. That's Safe Mode doing what Safe Mode does. Safe Mode loads minimal drivers, minimal background applications. It's not meant for normal use, it's for trouble-shooting. Your Load Failure prompted the system to suggest a Safe Mode trouble-shooting of the failure. Then I restarted (startshut downrestart) and got the normal mode and the re-sized/re-arranged icons and smaller windows and ran the different scans. Will probably have to re-size a window and 'Like Current Window' again. Bin There and Dun Dat before. Check to see if your usual video resolution is changed by booting into Safe Mode and then back to Normal Mode. Had second thoughts about restarting again and checked for replies before doing anything more. Haven't tried you're Command Prompt Only, SMARTDRV, etc. suggestion yet. That's next but will print an unfinished letter to my sister first. I think thats the only thing I saved yesturday. Just got a couple of updates from Spy Bot and/or AVG and/or Ad Aware, etc. Will rerun those. Thanks. Will post back after trying my hand at restore. The Start menu items will be "large icons" after returning from Safe Mode to Normal Mode . It's always like that, and there's nothing to fix. It's definitely a pain, but there's no remedy that I know of. Just use Taskbar & Start Menu settings to switch back to Small icons. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... Did you actually start in Safe Mode, or did you choose Normal Mode instead? If you went into Safe Mode, that would account for most, if not all, of your problems. Safe Mode doesn't load normal drivers. Video is lowest resolution and performance. You also have no networking support unless you chose Safe Mode w/ Networking. It also causes the Start Menu to switch to Large buttons and that has to be changed back once you go into Normal Mode. The "Restore" option you're looking for is done by booting to Command Prompt Only and then running the following: SMARTDRV enter SCANREG /RESTORE enter (Space after SCANREG) Choose backup based upon date, not filename. Choose most recent one from *before* the problem started. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
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No rush--It's now 3 am on the Left Coast and I'm not likely to be back
for 6 or 7 hours my own self. Gotta snooze sometime. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... Wow. Thanks for your most generous reply(ies). Might take a while to get thru the steps and get back to you. What am I doing up at four in the morning? Maybe it was the midnight coffee. Might as well have some more. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... First of all, I don't think you really needed a Registry Restore, and that's what SCANREG /RESTORE does. (Also restores backed up copies of other primary configuration files like MSDOS.SYS, WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI. It does *not* restore any other files unless you specifically tell it to using SCANREG.INI. The only way to get that kind of backup in Windows 98 is to use a backup or imaging utility.) Since their wasn't likely anything wrong with your Registry that couldn't be fixed with the methods I already described (Display Settings and/or Taskbar and Start Menu settings), there was no real need to do a SCANREG /RESTORE. However, when you did the procedure, it saved the existing files in a file called RBBAD.CAB in C:\Windows\SYSBCKUP (a Hidden folder.) Was that by chance the name of the name of the backup that you restored last, the one from earlier today, FEB. 16, 2005? Or did it have a name like RB003.CAB, with three digits in place of BAD? That you only had old backups suggests that your automatic Registry Checker (SCANREGW) must have been disabled. Let me introduce you to MSCONFIG, aka System Configuration Utility. You get there by typing MSCONFIG into the Start\Run box. Once the app pops up, before you do *anything*, look, just look, at what's checked, unchecked and/or grayed on the General Panel. Then look at the Startup tab. Write down which items are disabled (aren't checked) if any. You don't need to write down the whole command line, just the names, so you know what to turn back off later if needs be. Important Note: When writing down disabled items, take note, also, if any that are disabled has a twin that is enabled. Back on the General tab, if any of the other items under "Selective Startup" (besides Startup Programs) are checked but grayed, write down which ones, then go to each one's corresponding tab and look for unchecked lines. Write down what each of those unchecked lines, if any, says (I think you have to click on the +plus sign by the checkbox to see the lines themselves.) When you're sure you have made a note of all disabled items (anything that's unchecked on any of the tabs), choose Normal Startup on the General tab. Next, to make getting into the Startup Menu easy (where Safe Mode, Command Line Only, etc. launch from), click on the Advanced button on the General tab of MSCONFIG and check "Enable Startup Menu". You can either leave it that way, or disable it when you don't need the Startup Menu, or I can tell you a couple of tricks for making it appear at every boot, but for a shorter time than the default 30 seconds. Click OK to get back to General tab. Finally, click OK but *do_not* restart when prompted to. Next, run System Information (MSINFO32) from the Start\Run box. Expand (click the + sign by) Software Environment, then click on Startup Programs. Click anywhere in the right-hand pane, then press Ctrl-A. Then press Ctrl-C. Then open a reply to this post and use Ctrl-V to paste in the Startup info. Go back to the top of the message and add your list of what was disabled in MSCONFIG before you re-enabled Normal Startup. Close MSINFO32 (System Information), then run MSCONFIG again and disable all of the items from your previous list. You want to put it back the way it was until we can comment on the list, in case one or more things *need* to be disabled. EXCEPTION: If there were two of an item in MSCONFIG Startup tab, those twins I told you to take note of if there was one enabled and one disabled, and there is now only one in the list (enabled), leave it enabled. When there's one enabled and one disabled, that indicates that it was at one time disabled using MSCONFIG, but then re-enabled using settings from elsewhere. Until you re-enable all, there will be two entries, one enabled and one disabled, but when you re-enable all, the duplications disappear. Finally, send the post. To recap: The effects you saw that caused you to write us in the first place are probably the usual effects of a visit to Safe Mode. You should be able to put them back the way they belong using StartSettingsTaskbar and Start Menu or StartSettingsControl PanelDisplay, Settings tab. You *probably* didn't need a Registry restore, but so long as you really restored back a copy from today, you're OK. You did, right? Restore a backup dated today? Once you've checked the locations I mentioned in order to change the display settings back to what they should be, and you have posted the startup list for review, along with anything that is still bothering you with the display and layout of your system after using the methods I suggested for remedy, we can offer suggestions as to what more needs to be done. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... Well, I stumbled and fumbled into Command Prompt Only and had a short list of dates to choose from. One was today the 16th and the others were the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Picked the 15th. When I got back to the desktop, AVG was missing from the sys tray by the clock but AVG was checking the boot sequence and I could 'find' numerous AVG listings with startfindAVG. That seemed odd and thought I'd try another date.Had a heck of a time getting back to Command Prompt Only for another date (this is the machine that doesn't find the main drive on first try and needs F1 to continue) and it turns out the 13th, 14th, and 15th were JULY '04. If I hold F8 or Ctrl during boot the sytem beeps like a stuck key when it gets to the 'F1 to continue' stage so I release the F8 or Ctrl key and it gets tricky or I get lucky getting back to the start up menu with the safe mode, normal mode, etc options. I swear there are only the four dates to choose from; the three from last July and the one from earlier today. Picked the one from earlier today to get the AVG icon back. Don't know what my next move will be or should be. Have been tempted for a few months to get a newer used machine. Maybe thats the move. Or maybe I'll just watch tonights NHL / Red Wings game and sleep on the computer problem and try again in the morning. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... "keith" wrote in message ... When I restarted after the laod failure the computer went to the Safe Mode, Normal Mode, etc., option screen. Left it on option 3 (Safe Mode) and 'enter'ed. Safe Mode is where I got the real large solitaire, large icons, and the bum internet. That's Safe Mode doing what Safe Mode does. Safe Mode loads minimal drivers, minimal background applications. It's not meant for normal use, it's for trouble-shooting. Your Load Failure prompted the system to suggest a Safe Mode trouble-shooting of the failure. Then I restarted (startshut downrestart) and got the normal mode and the re-sized/re-arranged icons and smaller windows and ran the different scans. Will probably have to re-size a window and 'Like Current Window' again. Bin There and Dun Dat before. Check to see if your usual video resolution is changed by booting into Safe Mode and then back to Normal Mode. Had second thoughts about restarting again and checked for replies before doing anything more. Haven't tried you're Command Prompt Only, SMARTDRV, etc. suggestion yet. That's next but will print an unfinished letter to my sister first. I think thats the only thing I saved yesturday. Just got a couple of updates from Spy Bot and/or AVG and/or Ad Aware, etc. Will rerun those. Thanks. Will post back after trying my hand at restore. The Start menu items will be "large icons" after returning from Safe Mode to Normal Mode . It's always like that, and there's nothing to fix. It's definitely a pain, but there's no remedy that I know of. Just use Taskbar & Start Menu settings to switch back to Small icons. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... Did you actually start in Safe Mode, or did you choose Normal Mode instead? If you went into Safe Mode, that would account for most, if not all, of your problems. Safe Mode doesn't load normal drivers. Video is lowest resolution and performance. You also have no networking support unless you chose Safe Mode w/ Networking. It also causes the Start Menu to switch to Large buttons and that has to be changed back once you go into Normal Mode. The "Restore" option you're looking for is done by booting to Command Prompt Only and then running the following: SMARTDRV enter SCANREG /RESTORE enter (Space after SCANREG) Choose backup based upon date, not filename. Choose most recent one from *before* the problem started. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
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First things first.
Thanks a heap. It was an RB(3 digit) cab file. Startup Menu now showing at boot. 30 seconds isn't too bad. Seem to have lost an hour on the computer clock. And now the rest: Hope the 'columns' line up. MSCONFIG Selective Start Up *(list A) Process configsys file gray, no check tab shows no listings, just blank white pane Process autoexec.bat file white, checked tab shows ALL expanded items checked Process winstart.bat file gray, no check No tab Process system ini file white, checked tab shows ALL expanded items checkd Process win ini file white, checked tab shows ALL expanded items checked Load start up group items gray, checked Start-up tab Checked *(list B) (Alt/Ctrl/Del usually shows just Explorer, AVGcc, AVGemc, and systray.) System Tray AVG7_CC AVG7_EMC AVG7_AMSVR TkBellexe **** twin Unchecked *(list C) EPSON Status Monitor 3 TkBellExe **** twin TaskMonitor AdaptecDirectCD ScanRegistry LoadPowerProfile QuickTime Task ashMaiSv SAgent2ExePath defwatch LoadPowerProfile rtvscn95 * Question. Your last paragraph before recap - ...'then run MSCONFIG again and disable all of the items from your previous list.' Which list? A, B, or C? Comment. No win98 load failure since that one time. So far so good and maybe still a few preferences to reset. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... No rush--It's now 3 am on the Left Coast and I'm not likely to be back for 6 or 7 hours my own self. Gotta snooze sometime. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... Wow. Thanks for your most generous reply(ies). Might take a while to get thru the steps and get back to you. What am I doing up at four in the morning? Maybe it was the midnight coffee. Might as well have some more. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... First of all, I don't think you really needed a Registry Restore, and that's what SCANREG /RESTORE does. (Also restores backed up copies of other primary configuration files like MSDOS.SYS, WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI. It does *not* restore any other files unless you specifically tell it to using SCANREG.INI. The only way to get that kind of backup in Windows 98 is to use a backup or imaging utility.) Since their wasn't likely anything wrong with your Registry that couldn't be fixed with the methods I already described (Display Settings and/or Taskbar and Start Menu settings), there was no real need to do a SCANREG /RESTORE. However, when you did the procedure, it saved the existing files in a file called RBBAD.CAB in C:\Windows\SYSBCKUP (a Hidden folder.) Was that by chance the name of the name of the backup that you restored last, the one from earlier today, FEB. 16, 2005? Or did it have a name like RB003.CAB, with three digits in place of BAD? That you only had old backups suggests that your automatic Registry Checker (SCANREGW) must have been disabled. Let me introduce you to MSCONFIG, aka System Configuration Utility. You get there by typing MSCONFIG into the Start\Run box. Once the app pops up, before you do *anything*, look, just look, at what's checked, unchecked and/or grayed on the General Panel. Then look at the Startup tab. Write down which items are disabled (aren't checked) if any. You don't need to write down the whole command line, just the names, so you know what to turn back off later if needs be. Important Note: When writing down disabled items, take note, also, if any that are disabled has a twin that is enabled. Back on the General tab, if any of the other items under "Selective Startup" (besides Startup Programs) are checked but grayed, write down which ones, then go to each one's corresponding tab and look for unchecked lines. Write down what each of those unchecked lines, if any, says (I think you have to click on the +plus sign by the checkbox to see the lines themselves.) When you're sure you have made a note of all disabled items (anything that's unchecked on any of the tabs), choose Normal Startup on the General tab. Next, to make getting into the Startup Menu easy (where Safe Mode, Command Line Only, etc. launch from), click on the Advanced button on the General tab of MSCONFIG and check "Enable Startup Menu". You can either leave it that way, or disable it when you don't need the Startup Menu, or I can tell you a couple of tricks for making it appear at every boot, but for a shorter time than the default 30 seconds. Click OK to get back to General tab. Finally, click OK but *do_not* restart when prompted to. Next, run System Information (MSINFO32) from the Start\Run box. Expand (click the + sign by) Software Environment, then click on Startup Programs. Click anywhere in the right-hand pane, then press Ctrl-A. Then press Ctrl-C. Then open a reply to this post and use Ctrl-V to paste in the Startup info. Go back to the top of the message and add your list of what was disabled in MSCONFIG before you re-enabled Normal Startup. Close MSINFO32 (System Information), then run MSCONFIG again and disable all of the items from your previous list. You want to put it back the way it was until we can comment on the list, in case one or more things *need* to be disabled. EXCEPTION: If there were two of an item in MSCONFIG Startup tab, those twins I told you to take note of if there was one enabled and one disabled, and there is now only one in the list (enabled), leave it enabled. When there's one enabled and one disabled, that indicates that it was at one time disabled using MSCONFIG, but then re-enabled using settings from elsewhere. Until you re-enable all, there will be two entries, one enabled and one disabled, but when you re-enable all, the duplications disappear. Finally, send the post. To recap: The effects you saw that caused you to write us in the first place are probably the usual effects of a visit to Safe Mode. You should be able to put them back the way they belong using StartSettingsTaskbar and Start Menu or StartSettingsControl PanelDisplay, Settings tab. You *probably* didn't need a Registry restore, but so long as you really restored back a copy from today, you're OK. You did, right? Restore a backup dated today? Once you've checked the locations I mentioned in order to change the display settings back to what they should be, and you have posted the startup list for review, along with anything that is still bothering you with the display and layout of your system after using the methods I suggested for remedy, we can offer suggestions as to what more needs to be done. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... Well, I stumbled and fumbled into Command Prompt Only and had a short list of dates to choose from. One was today the 16th and the others were the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Picked the 15th. When I got back to the desktop, AVG was missing from the sys tray by the clock but AVG was checking the boot sequence and I could 'find' numerous AVG listings with startfindAVG. That seemed odd and thought I'd try another date.Had a heck of a time getting back to Command Prompt Only for another date (this is the machine that doesn't find the main drive on first try and needs F1 to continue) and it turns out the 13th, 14th, and 15th were JULY '04. If I hold F8 or Ctrl during boot the sytem beeps like a stuck key when it gets to the 'F1 to continue' stage so I release the F8 or Ctrl key and it gets tricky or I get lucky getting back to the start up menu with the safe mode, normal mode, etc options. I swear there are only the four dates to choose from; the three from last July and the one from earlier today. Picked the one from earlier today to get the AVG icon back. Don't know what my next move will be or should be. Have been tempted for a few months to get a newer used machine. Maybe thats the move. Or maybe I'll just watch tonights NHL / Red Wings game and sleep on the computer problem and try again in the morning. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... "keith" wrote in message ... When I restarted after the laod failure the computer went to the Safe Mode, Normal Mode, etc., option screen. Left it on option 3 (Safe Mode) and 'enter'ed. Safe Mode is where I got the real large solitaire, large icons, and the bum internet. That's Safe Mode doing what Safe Mode does. Safe Mode loads minimal drivers, minimal background applications. It's not meant for normal use, it's for trouble-shooting. Your Load Failure prompted the system to suggest a Safe Mode trouble-shooting of the failure. Then I restarted (startshut downrestart) and got the normal mode and the re-sized/re-arranged icons and smaller windows and ran the different scans. Will probably have to re-size a window and 'Like Current Window' again. Bin There and Dun Dat before. Check to see if your usual video resolution is changed by booting into Safe Mode and then back to Normal Mode. Had second thoughts about restarting again and checked for replies before doing anything more. Haven't tried you're Command Prompt Only, SMARTDRV, etc. suggestion yet. That's next but will print an unfinished letter to my sister first. I think thats the only thing I saved yesturday. Just got a couple of updates from Spy Bot and/or AVG and/or Ad Aware, etc. Will rerun those. Thanks. Will post back after trying my hand at restore. The Start menu items will be "large icons" after returning from Safe Mode to Normal Mode . It's always like that, and there's nothing to fix. It's definitely a pain, but there's no remedy that I know of. Just use Taskbar & Start Menu settings to switch back to Small icons. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... Did you actually start in Safe Mode, or did you choose Normal Mode instead? If you went into Safe Mode, that would account for most, if not all, of your problems. Safe Mode doesn't load normal drivers. Video is lowest resolution and performance. You also have no networking support unless you chose Safe Mode w/ Networking. It also causes the Start Menu to switch to Large buttons and that has to be changed back once you go into Normal Mode. The "Restore" option you're looking for is done by booting to Command Prompt Only and then running the following: SMARTDRV enter SCANREG /RESTORE enter (Space after SCANREG) Choose backup based upon date, not filename. Choose most recent one from *before* the problem started. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
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PS: Just checked back on the restore cab files.
2-16-05 Not started rb002.cab 2-16-05 Not started rb001.cab 7-18-04 Started rb000.cab 7-17-04 Started rb005.cab 7-16-04 Started rb004.cab Haven't done anything yet but put shortcut SCANREG.EXE on the desktop. Do a back up once in a while or can it be 'schedualed'? "keith" wrote in message ... First things first. Thanks a heap. It was an RB(3 digit) cab file. Startup Menu now showing at boot. 30 seconds isn't too bad. Seem to have lost an hour on the computer clock. And now the rest: Hope the 'columns' line up. MSCONFIG Selective Start Up *(list A) Process configsys file gray, no check tab shows no listings, just blank white pane Process autoexec.bat file white, checked tab shows ALL expanded items checked Process winstart.bat file gray, no check No tab Process system ini file white, checked tab shows ALL expanded items checkd Process win ini file white, checked tab shows ALL expanded items checked Load start up group items gray, checked Start-up tab Checked *(list B) (Alt/Ctrl/Del usually shows just Explorer, AVGcc, AVGemc, and systray.) System Tray AVG7_CC AVG7_EMC AVG7_AMSVR TkBellexe **** twin Unchecked *(list C) EPSON Status Monitor 3 TkBellExe **** twin TaskMonitor AdaptecDirectCD ScanRegistry LoadPowerProfile QuickTime Task ashMaiSv SAgent2ExePath defwatch LoadPowerProfile rtvscn95 * Question. Your last paragraph before recap - ...'then run MSCONFIG again and disable all of the items from your previous list.' Which list? A, B, or C? Comment. No win98 load failure since that one time. So far so good and maybe still a few preferences to reset. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... No rush--It's now 3 am on the Left Coast and I'm not likely to be back for 6 or 7 hours my own self. Gotta snooze sometime. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... Wow. Thanks for your most generous reply(ies). Might take a while to get thru the steps and get back to you. What am I doing up at four in the morning? Maybe it was the midnight coffee. Might as well have some more. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... First of all, I don't think you really needed a Registry Restore, and that's what SCANREG /RESTORE does. (Also restores backed up copies of other primary configuration files like MSDOS.SYS, WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI. It does *not* restore any other files unless you specifically tell it to using SCANREG.INI. The only way to get that kind of backup in Windows 98 is to use a backup or imaging utility.) Since their wasn't likely anything wrong with your Registry that couldn't be fixed with the methods I already described (Display Settings and/or Taskbar and Start Menu settings), there was no real need to do a SCANREG /RESTORE. However, when you did the procedure, it saved the existing files in a file called RBBAD.CAB in C:\Windows\SYSBCKUP (a Hidden folder.) Was that by chance the name of the name of the backup that you restored last, the one from earlier today, FEB. 16, 2005? Or did it have a name like RB003.CAB, with three digits in place of BAD? That you only had old backups suggests that your automatic Registry Checker (SCANREGW) must have been disabled. Let me introduce you to MSCONFIG, aka System Configuration Utility. You get there by typing MSCONFIG into the Start\Run box. Once the app pops up, before you do *anything*, look, just look, at what's checked, unchecked and/or grayed on the General Panel. Then look at the Startup tab. Write down which items are disabled (aren't checked) if any. You don't need to write down the whole command line, just the names, so you know what to turn back off later if needs be. Important Note: When writing down disabled items, take note, also, if any that are disabled has a twin that is enabled. Back on the General tab, if any of the other items under "Selective Startup" (besides Startup Programs) are checked but grayed, write down which ones, then go to each one's corresponding tab and look for unchecked lines. Write down what each of those unchecked lines, if any, says (I think you have to click on the +plus sign by the checkbox to see the lines themselves.) When you're sure you have made a note of all disabled items (anything that's unchecked on any of the tabs), choose Normal Startup on the General tab. Next, to make getting into the Startup Menu easy (where Safe Mode, Command Line Only, etc. launch from), click on the Advanced button on the General tab of MSCONFIG and check "Enable Startup Menu". You can either leave it that way, or disable it when you don't need the Startup Menu, or I can tell you a couple of tricks for making it appear at every boot, but for a shorter time than the default 30 seconds. Click OK to get back to General tab. Finally, click OK but *do_not* restart when prompted to. Next, run System Information (MSINFO32) from the Start\Run box. Expand (click the + sign by) Software Environment, then click on Startup Programs. Click anywhere in the right-hand pane, then press Ctrl-A. Then press Ctrl-C. Then open a reply to this post and use Ctrl-V to paste in the Startup info. Go back to the top of the message and add your list of what was disabled in MSCONFIG before you re-enabled Normal Startup. Close MSINFO32 (System Information), then run MSCONFIG again and disable all of the items from your previous list. You want to put it back the way it was until we can comment on the list, in case one or more things *need* to be disabled. EXCEPTION: If there were two of an item in MSCONFIG Startup tab, those twins I told you to take note of if there was one enabled and one disabled, and there is now only one in the list (enabled), leave it enabled. When there's one enabled and one disabled, that indicates that it was at one time disabled using MSCONFIG, but then re-enabled using settings from elsewhere. Until you re-enable all, there will be two entries, one enabled and one disabled, but when you re-enable all, the duplications disappear. Finally, send the post. To recap: The effects you saw that caused you to write us in the first place are probably the usual effects of a visit to Safe Mode. You should be able to put them back the way they belong using StartSettingsTaskbar and Start Menu or StartSettingsControl PanelDisplay, Settings tab. You *probably* didn't need a Registry restore, but so long as you really restored back a copy from today, you're OK. You did, right? Restore a backup dated today? Once you've checked the locations I mentioned in order to change the display settings back to what they should be, and you have posted the startup list for review, along with anything that is still bothering you with the display and layout of your system after using the methods I suggested for remedy, we can offer suggestions as to what more needs to be done. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... Well, I stumbled and fumbled into Command Prompt Only and had a short list of dates to choose from. One was today the 16th and the others were the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Picked the 15th. When I got back to the desktop, AVG was missing from the sys tray by the clock but AVG was checking the boot sequence and I could 'find' numerous AVG listings with startfindAVG. That seemed odd and thought I'd try another date.Had a heck of a time getting back to Command Prompt Only for another date (this is the machine that doesn't find the main drive on first try and needs F1 to continue) and it turns out the 13th, 14th, and 15th were JULY '04. If I hold F8 or Ctrl during boot the sytem beeps like a stuck key when it gets to the 'F1 to continue' stage so I release the F8 or Ctrl key and it gets tricky or I get lucky getting back to the start up menu with the safe mode, normal mode, etc options. I swear there are only the four dates to choose from; the three from last July and the one from earlier today. Picked the one from earlier today to get the AVG icon back. Don't know what my next move will be or should be. Have been tempted for a few months to get a newer used machine. Maybe thats the move. Or maybe I'll just watch tonights NHL / Red Wings game and sleep on the computer problem and try again in the morning. "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... "keith" wrote in message ... When I restarted after the laod failure the computer went to the Safe Mode, Normal Mode, etc., option screen. Left it on option 3 (Safe Mode) and 'enter'ed. Safe Mode is where I got the real large solitaire, large icons, and the bum internet. That's Safe Mode doing what Safe Mode does. Safe Mode loads minimal drivers, minimal background applications. It's not meant for normal use, it's for trouble-shooting. Your Load Failure prompted the system to suggest a Safe Mode trouble-shooting of the failure. Then I restarted (startshut downrestart) and got the normal mode and the re-sized/re-arranged icons and smaller windows and ran the different scans. Will probably have to re-size a window and 'Like Current Window' again. Bin There and Dun Dat before. Check to see if your usual video resolution is changed by booting into Safe Mode and then back to Normal Mode. Had second thoughts about restarting again and checked for replies before doing anything more. Haven't tried you're Command Prompt Only, SMARTDRV, etc. suggestion yet. That's next but will print an unfinished letter to my sister first. I think thats the only thing I saved yesturday. Just got a couple of updates from Spy Bot and/or AVG and/or Ad Aware, etc. Will rerun those. Thanks. Will post back after trying my hand at restore. The Start menu items will be "large icons" after returning from Safe Mode to Normal Mode . It's always like that, and there's nothing to fix. It's definitely a pain, but there's no remedy that I know of. Just use Taskbar & Start Menu settings to switch back to Small icons. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message ... Did you actually start in Safe Mode, or did you choose Normal Mode instead? If you went into Safe Mode, that would account for most, if not all, of your problems. Safe Mode doesn't load normal drivers. Video is lowest resolution and performance. You also have no networking support unless you chose Safe Mode w/ Networking. It also causes the Start Menu to switch to Large buttons and that has to be changed back once you go into Normal Mode. The "Restore" option you're looking for is done by booting to Command Prompt Only and then running the following: SMARTDRV enter SCANREG /RESTORE enter (Space after SCANREG) Choose backup based upon date, not filename. Choose most recent one from *before* the problem started. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm "keith" wrote in message ... All was well early this morning but just fired this thing back up a short while ago and screen went black and comp shut itself down. Restarted and got the Safe Mode screen with the options and a warning that 98 failed to finish loading. Played a couple of *very large* games of solitaire and tried the internet. "Unable to load page." Start button shut down restart. May have started a little slower than usual but it did finish. Desktop icons re-sized and re-arranged and some windows shrunk. Spybot S&D found nothing.but new definitions *real* slow to load. AdAware SE and Spyware Blaster OK and no problems found. AVG a bit slow and with a different screen layout but nothing found there either. IE and OE (obviously) OK. A bit of sinility - what do you call it when reverting to previous state of affairs? "Restore"? And are previous states automatically stored or should I have been saving them on purpose ocassionaly ? Wish I could restore myself sometimes. Going to try and find the 'restore' option and give it a try but if its not called 'restore' it might take a while to find it. Will try restart again first and see what happens and maybe revisit Gary's "Clean Boot" too.. Any suggestions? |
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