WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly

On 02/22/2010 01:37 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:03:47 -0500, MEB
wrote:

** ANGUS:
Find out what is presently running within the system using one of the
autorun tools, MSConfig, and other methods and tools which you have seen
the group mention here before. Do we need to run through some of that again?

If there's a URL or old thread (locatable via Google Groups) you
can point me to, then fine, but I don't want anyone to go to too
much trouble over this, as I have so many niggles with my present
installation, and this is just one which I hoped there might be
a quick fix for, which would make it easier for me to get around
to reinstalling the whole thing from scratch, which needs doing,
and which I mean to ask about separately - when I can face it!

That re-install reluctance is understandable having done it myself
several dozen times for testing purposes...

MSConfig [also available via MSInfo - the discussions were concerning
"clean boot" settings hence a search term you can use] shows SOME of the
running/auto stuff, though I always recommended sysinternals autoruns
since it shows all of the settings and running aspect plus the
reason/hook/association for them.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...s/default.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192926 -clean boot
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796
http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm - Gary's old page

Note the below defrag answer as well.


We should ask if you have done any tweaks or system/browser updating
since EOL, and whether you have a standard system?

As far as I know, it's pretty standard. I really don't enjoy
messing with Windows, and just tend to use the standard user
customisation features. I can't think of anything I have done
which could have led to this problem, which just seemed to come
out of the blue a few weeks ago. (Apart from the failed update
to avast!, which I've already mentioned.)

This particular installation of Win98SE (I've done 6 altogether
on this machine, this one dating from January 2007) has always
had a lot of odd flaky little things wrong with it, it has never
felt as solid as any I've worked with before, but there has never
been anything major enough to make me think seriously of reinstall-
ing it. But for months now, it has been suffering the death of
a thousand cuts: lots of little things, none individually worth
worrying a lot over, but all adding up to a system which is a
constant displeasure to work with. (I'm including things like
software updates no longer being available. I must reluctantly
abandon Win98SE as my main OS. But I want to keep it for some
uses.)

The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real
way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. I wish one of
the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but
it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux,
unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?).


I haven't defragged for a long time. Does there come a point
when things suddenly get a LOT slower because of fragmentation?
I never expected that; I imagined there would only be a slow
decline in performance; a sudden change of this magnitude would
seem counter-intuitive; but is it a possibility?

Short answer: yes. Long:

Part of your issue may be a dis-contiguous swap file. If you haven't
defragged in awhile and you manipulate large files and/or run large
and/or multiple programs, then the swap on your disk may exist in
several places, hence lots of head travel back and forth. The answer is
to do that defrag, HOWEVER, here is where what is running in the
background severely affects the defrag speed and abilities.

Though your present available system resources are low [per your below
MSInfo] you will be freeing some by disabling some of the startup
programs PRIOR to attempting the defrag AND once you accomplish that,
you ALSO disable Virtual Memory [you should have more than enough after
disabling the startup/background programs].

If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is
an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues.
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm
I think this is still the link:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE

Once you get the startup stuff disabled [clean boot or other method],
and delete any temp files, disable Virtual Memory by:
Control Panel - System - Performance - Virtual Memory - disable Windows
handling.

AFTER a re-boot run Windows [in normal mode] scandisk, and defrag with
defrag /P [which moves even some of the supposed unmovables]. After you
run both, re-enable Virtual Memory.

From a semi-recent post:
Is it possible to run defrag with 1-click script (vbscript or bat), for
more convenience?
Firstly script need set up a Clean boot configuration with MSCONFIG
("Selective startup" with all boxes unchecked), then restart Windows 98
in Safe mode and run defrag command.


This has been done several times before here.
Short answer: Yes. Though this is a "qualified" yes.

Note though, run-once entries and/or autoexec.bat {or other batch
files} entries need addressed upon re-start.

In at least a few discussions, such already made apps or scripts were
discussed, such as:
GeoDisk [which had issues when I tested it with my configuration at
that time];
using scripts, though not by directly using msconfig; why use an app
when the intent is to use a script; it should do this in its own coding.

Obvious Registry areas that need addressed:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\Run
2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\*Run
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunOnce
4. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\*RunOnce
5.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunServices
6.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunServicesOnce

7.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunOnce\Setup

Some things often over-looked which can cause these delays and/or
re-starts a

1. screen savers;

2. power management;

3. your {potentially} permanent Internet connection;

4. your network, particularly wireless connections;

5. networked folders and/or drives;

6. limited memory and/or disk cache and swap settings;

7. most anti-malware applications do NOT actually shut-down (remove
themselves) completely even when disabled;

8. ANY usage of the computer during the scandisk/defrag process;

9. the above are/cause *monitoring activity*, hence these and anything
else which does this can potentially cause re-starts and/or disk writes,
INCLUDING defrag which writes relocation and other changes to the disk
[changing FAT locations/entries, etc.], or applications which write
their changed entries directly to the registry.

An alternative is to check Do not show this again when defrag/scandisk
pops-up the box complaining about disk changes, and running it when the
computer has the most limited usage {like when you are asleep} using
Task Manager or similar, AND limiting the disk/partition size when
running, e.g., doing the disks/partitions during different sleep periods
[different days].

For script examples see:

Bill James · Microsoft MVP
http://billsway.com/vbspage/

For instance [though this doesn't address clean boot]:

'ScanFragAll.vbs - ScanDisk and DeFrag on all hard drives.
'© Bill James - - rev 10 Oct 1999
Option Explicit
Dim WshShell
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "scandskw /all /n /silent",1,true
WshShell.Run "defrag /F /P /all /noprompt",1,true




It's only WinZip that there is a problem with (in terms of very
slow file access, I mean). Also, the WinZip window seems to
behave oddly as soon as I start the program, sometimes (perhaps
not always): just dragging the mouse across it seems to cause a
very sluggish response in some of the icons. Yes - the mouse
pointer is moving v-e-r-y slowly and jerkily across the toolbar,
even though I'm not using WinZip to do anything, and the rest of
my system seems to be behaving quite normally. (I did create
some *.zip files last night, and I don't think I have rebooted
since then. I think WinZip tends to be generally less sluggish
after a reboot.)

Hmm, could be a couple things from malware, video drivers, icon cache
issues, to...
*IF* the system is clean and after you defrag, then you could do a
simple check by deleting the icon cache from DOS and rebooting.
C:\windows\ShellIconCache [no extension] though I think its at least a
hidden file so an attrib would be necessary. Dos start - cd to your
Windows folder -
attrib -h -s -r ShellIconCache
del ShellIconCache
reboot and it rebuilds over time/usage.


And what IE version is installed?

I'm afraid I don't even know that!

I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the
fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank!

That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just
annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are
still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates.


OK, I've found a program called 'Microsoft System Information',
which tells me:

Microsoft Windows 98 4.10.2222B

Clean install using Full OEM CD /T:C:\WININST0.400
/SrcDir=D:\WIN98SE\WIN98 /IZ /II /IS /IQ /IT /II /NR /II /C
/U:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

IE 5 6.0.2800.1106

[...]

AuthenticAMD AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1700+
768MB RAM
34% system resources free
Windows-managed swap file on drive C (2197MB free)
Available space on drive C: 2197MB of 3757MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive D: 3977MB of 7421MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive E: 4732MB of 7421MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive F: 4327MB of 59601MB (FAT32)


--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

On 02/22/2010 01:37 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:03:47 -0500, MEB
wrote:

** ANGUS:
Find out what is presently running within the system using one of the
autorun tools, MSConfig, and other methods and tools which you have seen
the group mention here before. Do we need to run through some of that again?

If there's a URL or old thread (locatable via Google Groups) you
can point me to, then fine, but I don't want anyone to go to too
much trouble over this, as I have so many niggles with my present
installation, and this is just one which I hoped there might be
a quick fix for, which would make it easier for me to get around
to reinstalling the whole thing from scratch, which needs doing,
and which I mean to ask about separately - when I can face it!

That re-install reluctance is understandable having done it myself
several dozen times for testing purposes...

MSConfig [also available via MSInfo - the discussions were concerning
"clean boot" settings hence a search term you can use] shows SOME of the
running/auto stuff, though I always recommended sysinternals autoruns
since it shows all of the settings and running aspect plus the
reason/hook/association for them.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...s/default.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192926 -clean boot
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796
http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm - Gary's old page

Note the below defrag answer as well.


We should ask if you have done any tweaks or system/browser updating
since EOL, and whether you have a standard system?

As far as I know, it's pretty standard. I really don't enjoy
messing with Windows, and just tend to use the standard user
customisation features. I can't think of anything I have done
which could have led to this problem, which just seemed to come
out of the blue a few weeks ago. (Apart from the failed update
to avast!, which I've already mentioned.)

This particular installation of Win98SE (I've done 6 altogether
on this machine, this one dating from January 2007) has always
had a lot of odd flaky little things wrong with it, it has never
felt as solid as any I've worked with before, but there has never
been anything major enough to make me think seriously of reinstall-
ing it. But for months now, it has been suffering the death of
a thousand cuts: lots of little things, none individually worth
worrying a lot over, but all adding up to a system which is a
constant displeasure to work with. (I'm including things like
software updates no longer being available. I must reluctantly
abandon Win98SE as my main OS. But I want to keep it for some
uses.)

The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real
way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. I wish one of
the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but
it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux,
unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?).


I haven't defragged for a long time. Does there come a point
when things suddenly get a LOT slower because of fragmentation?
I never expected that; I imagined there would only be a slow
decline in performance; a sudden change of this magnitude would
seem counter-intuitive; but is it a possibility?

Short answer: yes. Long:

Part of your issue may be a dis-contiguous swap file. If you haven't
defragged in awhile and you manipulate large files and/or run large
and/or multiple programs, then the swap on your disk may exist in
several places, hence lots of head travel back and forth. The answer is
to do that defrag, HOWEVER, here is where what is running in the
background severely affects the defrag speed and abilities.

Though your present available system resources are low [per your below
MSInfo] you will be freeing some by disabling some of the startup
programs PRIOR to attempting the defrag AND once you accomplish that,
you ALSO disable Virtual Memory [you should have more than enough after
disabling the startup/background programs].

If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is
an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues.
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm
I think this is still the link:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE

Once you get the startup stuff disabled [clean boot or other method],
and delete any temp files, disable Virtual Memory by:
Control Panel - System - Performance - Virtual Memory - disable Windows
handling.

AFTER a re-boot run Windows [in normal mode] scandisk, and defrag with
defrag /P [which moves even some of the supposed unmovables]. After you
run both, re-enable Virtual Memory.

From a semi-recent post:
Is it possible to run defrag with 1-click script (vbscript or bat), for
more convenience?
Firstly script need set up a Clean boot configuration with MSCONFIG
("Selective startup" with all boxes unchecked), then restart Windows 98
in Safe mode and run defrag command.


This has been done several times before here.
Short answer: Yes. Though this is a "qualified" yes.

Note though, run-once entries and/or autoexec.bat {or other batch
files} entries need addressed upon re-start.

In at least a few discussions, such already made apps or scripts were
discussed, such as:
GeoDisk [which had issues when I tested it with my configuration at
that time];
using scripts, though not by directly using msconfig; why use an app
when the intent is to use a script; it should do this in its own coding.

Obvious Registry areas that need addressed:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\Run
2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\*Run
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunOnce
4. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\*RunOnce
5.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunServices
6.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunServicesOnce

7.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunOnce\Setup

Some things often over-looked which can cause these delays and/or
re-starts a

1. screen savers;

2. power management;

3. your {potentially} permanent Internet connection;

4. your network, particularly wireless connections;

5. networked folders and/or drives;

6. limited memory and/or disk cache and swap settings;

7. most anti-malware applications do NOT actually shut-down (remove
themselves) completely even when disabled;

8. ANY usage of the computer during the scandisk/defrag process;

9. the above are/cause *monitoring activity*, hence these and anything
else which does this can potentially cause re-starts and/or disk writes,
INCLUDING defrag which writes relocation and other changes to the disk
[changing FAT locations/entries, etc.], or applications which write
their changed entries directly to the registry.

An alternative is to check Do not show this again when defrag/scandisk
pops-up the box complaining about disk changes, and running it when the
computer has the most limited usage {like when you are asleep} using
Task Manager or similar, AND limiting the disk/partition size when
running, e.g., doing the disks/partitions during different sleep periods
[different days].

For script examples see:

Bill James · Microsoft MVP
http://billsway.com/vbspage/

For instance [though this doesn't address clean boot]:

'ScanFragAll.vbs - ScanDisk and DeFrag on all hard drives.
'© Bill James - - rev 10 Oct 1999
Option Explicit
Dim WshShell
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "scandskw /all /n /silent",1,true
WshShell.Run "defrag /F /P /all /noprompt",1,true




It's only WinZip that there is a problem with (in terms of very
slow file access, I mean). Also, the WinZip window seems to
behave oddly as soon as I start the program, sometimes (perhaps
not always): just dragging the mouse across it seems to cause a
very sluggish response in some of the icons. Yes - the mouse
pointer is moving v-e-r-y slowly and jerkily across the toolbar,
even though I'm not using WinZip to do anything, and the rest of
my system seems to be behaving quite normally. (I did create
some *.zip files last night, and I don't think I have rebooted
since then. I think WinZip tends to be generally less sluggish
after a reboot.)

Hmm, could be a couple things from malware, video drivers, icon cache
issues, to...
*IF* the system is clean and after you defrag, then you could do a
simple check by deleting the icon cache from DOS and rebooting.
C:\windows\ShellIconCache [no extension] though I think its at least a
hidden file so an attrib would be necessary. Dos start - cd to your
Windows folder -
attrib -h -s -r ShellIconCache
del ShellIconCache
reboot and it rebuilds over time/usage.


And what IE version is installed?

I'm afraid I don't even know that!

I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the
fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank!

That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just
annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are
still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates.


OK, I've found a program called 'Microsoft System Information',
which tells me:

Microsoft Windows 98 4.10.2222B

Clean install using Full OEM CD /T:C:\WININST0.400
/SrcDir=D:\WIN98SE\WIN98 /IZ /II /IS /IQ /IT /II /NR /II /C
/U:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

IE 5 6.0.2800.1106

[...]

AuthenticAMD AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1700+
768MB RAM
34% system resources free
Windows-managed swap file on drive C (2197MB free)
Available space on drive C: 2197MB of 3757MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive D: 3977MB of 7421MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive E: 4732MB of 7421MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive F: 4327MB of 59601MB (FAT32)


--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to
implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some
aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at
an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference.

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB
wrote:

The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have
no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware.

Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now.

I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles,
because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would
reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant
to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me
wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty.

I wish one of
the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but
it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux,
unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?).

Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the
best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows
installation?

Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do
to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at
college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and
even an old one about Linux, somewhere.

Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I
have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and
have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best,
for many months now.

If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is
an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues.
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm
I think this is still the link:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE

I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it
(I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago),
but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with
what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this
is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and
scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.)

Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other
niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it
drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe
opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!!

I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the
fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank!

That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just
annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are
still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates.

I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort
it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short-
sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with
the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-(

34% system resources free

It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down
it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it
go down to 1%! - Wheee!)

Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running
scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions,
and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the
installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for
which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned),
I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes
just this one of my very many problems.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't:

back up the registry
uninstall Winzip 8.0
back up the registry again
reinstall WinZip 8.0
back up the registry again

and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy-
duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this
problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my
data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X
PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs,
and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly
before attempting anything too dangerous.

--
Angus Rodgers

There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to
implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some
aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at
an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference.

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB
wrote:

The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have
no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware.

Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now.

I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles,
because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would
reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant
to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me
wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty.

I wish one of
the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but
it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux,
unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?).

Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the
best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows
installation?

Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do
to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at
college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and
even an old one about Linux, somewhere.

Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I
have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and
have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best,
for many months now.

If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is
an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues.
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm
I think this is still the link:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE

I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it
(I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago),
but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with
what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this
is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and
scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.)

Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other
niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it
drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe
opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!!

I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the
fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank!

That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just
annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are
still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates.

I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort
it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short-
sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with
the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-(

34% system resources free

It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down
it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it
go down to 1%! - Wheee!)

Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running
scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions,
and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the
installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for
which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned),
I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes
just this one of my very many problems.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't:

back up the registry
uninstall Winzip 8.0
back up the registry again
reinstall WinZip 8.0
back up the registry again

and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy-
duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this
problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my
data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X
PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs,
and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly
before attempting anything too dangerous.

--
Angus Rodgers

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:09:42 +0000, I wrote:

Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the
best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows
installation?

I was already thinking of downloading a Ubuntu installation CD
image (which I can presumably burn to a CD-R, using Nero on my
Win98SE system - no problem there, I hope?). Also it seems that
nowadays a Linux "installation CD" and a "Live CD" are much the
same thing, and this article mentions the Ubuntu one:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-9988099-33.html
Why you want a Linux Live CD | Defensive Computing - CNET News

So I suppose I should just go ahead and download the current CD
image from the main Ubuntu site? (However, I still don't want to
do anything with it, not even running Linux from a CD-R, until I
have made more complete and redundant backups of all my data - I
don't know how badly I might screw up!)

Will it be obvious what to do to scan my Win98SE installation
for malware, using Ubuntu from the CD?

--
Angus Rodgers

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:09:42 +0000, I wrote:

Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the
best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows
installation?

I was already thinking of downloading a Ubuntu installation CD
image (which I can presumably burn to a CD-R, using Nero on my
Win98SE system - no problem there, I hope?). Also it seems that
nowadays a Linux "installation CD" and a "Live CD" are much the
same thing, and this article mentions the Ubuntu one:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-9988099-33.html
Why you want a Linux Live CD | Defensive Computing - CNET News

So I suppose I should just go ahead and download the current CD
image from the main Ubuntu site? (However, I still don't want to
do anything with it, not even running Linux from a CD-R, until I
have made more complete and redundant backups of all my data - I
don't know how badly I might screw up!)

Will it be obvious what to do to scan my Win98SE installation
for malware, using Ubuntu from the CD?

--
Angus Rodgers

YES Infected with something nasty. Like SpyWare!
But all PC get spyware all day Long that's life on the Internet
that's why we have Anti-spyware + Antivirus Software and Firewall for,,,
nasty, nasty, nasty all day long
And Here In the USA we call N-Words!




"Angus Rodgers" wrote in message
...
There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to
implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some
aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at
an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference.

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB
wrote:

The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have
no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware.

Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now.

I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles,
because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would
reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant
to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me
wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty.

I wish one of
the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but
it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux,
unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your
network(?).

Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the
best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows
installation?

Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do
to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at
college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and
even an old one about Linux, somewhere.

Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I
have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and
have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best,
for many months now.

If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is
an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues.
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm
I think this is still the link:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE

I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it
(I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago),
but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with
what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this
is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and
scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.)

Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other
niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it
drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe
opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!!

I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the
fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank!

That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just
annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are
still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via
updates.

I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort
it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short-
sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with
the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-(

34% system resources free

It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down
it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it
go down to 1%! - Wheee!)

Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running
scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions,
and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the
installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for
which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned),
I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes
just this one of my very many problems.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't:

back up the registry
uninstall Winzip 8.0
back up the registry again
reinstall WinZip 8.0
back up the registry again

and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy-
duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this
problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my
data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X
PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs,
and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly
before attempting anything too dangerous.

--
Angus Rodgers

YES Infected with something nasty. Like SpyWare!
But all PC get spyware all day Long that's life on the Internet
that's why we have Anti-spyware + Antivirus Software and Firewall for,,,
nasty, nasty, nasty all day long
And Here In the USA we call N-Words!




"Angus Rodgers" wrote in message
...
There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to
implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some
aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at
an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference.

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB
wrote:

The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have
no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware.

Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now.

I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles,
because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would
reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant
to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me
wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty.

I wish one of
the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but
it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux,
unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your
network(?).

Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the
best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows
installation?

Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do
to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at
college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and
even an old one about Linux, somewhere.

Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I
have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and
have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best,
for many months now.

If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is
an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues.
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm
I think this is still the link:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE

I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it
(I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago),
but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with
what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this
is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and
scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.)

Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other
niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it
drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe
opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!!

I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the
fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank!

That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just
annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are
still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via
updates.

I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort
it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short-
sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with
the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-(

34% system resources free

It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down
it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it
go down to 1%! - Wheee!)

Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running
scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions,
and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the
installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for
which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned),
I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes
just this one of my very many problems.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't:

back up the registry
uninstall Winzip 8.0
back up the registry again
reinstall WinZip 8.0
back up the registry again

and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy-
duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this
problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my
data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X
PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs,
and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly
before attempting anything too dangerous.

--
Angus Rodgers

On 02/22/2010 04:09 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to
implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some
aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at
an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference.

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB
wrote:

The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have
no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware.

Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now.

I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles,
because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would
reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant
to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me
wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty.

I wish one of
the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but
it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux,
unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?).

Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the
best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows
installation?

Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do
to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at
college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and
even an old one about Linux, somewhere.

Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I
have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and
have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best,
for many months now.

If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is
an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues.
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm
I think this is still the link:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE

I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it
(I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago),
but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with
what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this
is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and
scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.)

That happens to be one [the replacements] that this group has done
repeatedly and in depth, with no adverse effect and to the betterment of
the OS. most of Win9X users always thought they should have been given
to Win98 during an update, but then that would be Microsoft giving away
part of its "new and improved" OS,,,
There are several sites which offer them, so .....


Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other
niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it
drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe
opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!!

Oh my bad, I should have said it was a "right click - save as"
situation. However, that just exposed a major flaw. the exe running from
the Internet flaw... but we'll not get into that right now.


I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the
fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank!

That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just
annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are
still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates.

I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort
it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short-
sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with
the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-(

Okay, let's deal with just a couple things at a time or this discussion
will become unintelligible.


34% system resources free

It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down
it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it
go down to 1%! - Wheee!)

Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running
scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions,
and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the
installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for
which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned),
I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes
just this one of my very many problems.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't:

back up the registry
uninstall Winzip 8.0
back up the registry again
reinstall WinZip 8.0
back up the registry again

and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy-
duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this
problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my
data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X
PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs,
and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly
before attempting anything too dangerous.


Well of course not, anything is worth a try, of course the other
'niggles' aren't likely to go away...

And rather than answering in the other and to correct for those not
ready to take the plunge into Linux:

The using a LiveCD to check for malware also pertains to the ability to
download one of those Live AV/malware boot CDs and using that. Several
available, like Hiren's [multi-purpose], Barts,
Multi-AV - http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp [David Lipman's]
or one of the others you can find via a search [even from some AV
providers now].

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

On 02/22/2010 04:09 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to
implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some
aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at
an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference.

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB
wrote:

The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have
no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware.

Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now.

I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles,
because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would
reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant
to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me
wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty.

I wish one of
the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but
it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux,
unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?).

Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the
best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows
installation?

Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do
to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at
college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and
even an old one about Linux, somewhere.

Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I
have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and
have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best,
for many months now.

If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is
an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues.
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm
I think this is still the link:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE

I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it
(I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago),
but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with
what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this
is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and
scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.)

That happens to be one [the replacements] that this group has done
repeatedly and in depth, with no adverse effect and to the betterment of
the OS. most of Win9X users always thought they should have been given
to Win98 during an update, but then that would be Microsoft giving away
part of its "new and improved" OS,,,
There are several sites which offer them, so .....


Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other
niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it
drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe
opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!!

Oh my bad, I should have said it was a "right click - save as"
situation. However, that just exposed a major flaw. the exe running from
the Internet flaw... but we'll not get into that right now.


I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the
fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank!

That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just
annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are
still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates.

I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort
it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short-
sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with
the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-(

Okay, let's deal with just a couple things at a time or this discussion
will become unintelligible.


34% system resources free

It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down
it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it
go down to 1%! - Wheee!)

Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running
scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions,
and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the
installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for
which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned),
I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes
just this one of my very many problems.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't:

back up the registry
uninstall Winzip 8.0
back up the registry again
reinstall WinZip 8.0
back up the registry again

and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy-
duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this
problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my
data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X
PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs,
and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly
before attempting anything too dangerous.


Well of course not, anything is worth a try, of course the other
'niggles' aren't likely to go away...

And rather than answering in the other and to correct for those not
ready to take the plunge into Linux:

The using a LiveCD to check for malware also pertains to the ability to
download one of those Live AV/malware boot CDs and using that. Several
available, like Hiren's [multi-purpose], Barts,
Multi-AV - http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp [David Lipman's]
or one of the others you can find via a search [even from some AV
providers now].

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---