[OT] Another "niggle" vanquished

No reply is needed to this. It is just a partial followup to
the long thread I started, "WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly". In
that thread, I mentioned a large number of "niggles" which had
developed, over a long period (but especially in the last few
months), in my Win98SE installation (dating from January 2007).

The one I most urgently needed to deal with was the very slow
running of WinZip 8.0, and that seems to have been sorted out
(although further tests must be made) by uninstalling it, and
replacing it with WinZip 9.0 SR1 (as someone here suggested).

Another niggle which had been driving me insane for months was
that mouse clicks were either not being registered at all, or
else were being registered as *double* clicks. This has been
causing much chaos, and great frustration, as you can probably
imagine. (For instance, it's why a URL for an *.exe file in an
article that somebody posted in that thread led to the program
nearly being unintentionally executed: the mouse pointer just
goes haphazardly all over the place, and non-existent double
clicks get executed, without me being able to control much of
what is happening.)

An obvious first thing to try was to switch the computer off
and swop the mouse for another one (having first checked that
it was plugged in properly, of course). Because I hadn't yet
done this, I didn't go into details about that "niggle".

One reason why I hadn't done this obvious test was that my
ancient CRT monitor has been failing, and, to keep it alive,
I have to risk ruthlessly destroying the planet by leaving
it on standby all the time; also I tend to go to sleep while
listening to BBC Radio 7 on the computer, so it is difficult
for me ever to switch the computer off. (Absurd, I know.)

But the main reason is that when it gradually started to become
apparent that I would not be able to continue having Win98SE as
my OS, I just lost heart, I stopped even trying to keep my PC
in good working condition; and in particular, when there were
problems with the antivirus and spyware detector programs, I
didn't bother to do anything about them; so, when "niggles"
started to develop, I just hopelessly assumed that my machine
was badly infected and compromised, and that there was nothing
I could do about it.

It was all in the mind. I still have to update my antivirus
and anti-spyware programs - and do all the other maintenance
duties which I have been neglecting for so long - but so far,
what I have learned is that my two most maddening "niggles"
were not caused by malware at all. Something had gone wrong
with the installation of WinZip; and the mouse was broken*.

Now that these two things have (apparently) been fixed, my
system seems fine. I'm not now anticipating having any more
problems than anyone else in keeping my Win98SE installation
going in good shape for a while longer.

Thanks for bearing with me while I panicked! All suggestions
made have been carefully listed, and I will be working through
them gradually, as I try to get things in order, step by step.

*It was a Microsoft IntelliMouse, and I dimly recall having
to install some kind of driver software for it, and there
having been some kind of problem, apparently minor at the
time, which I ignored - there being many other flaky little
things wrong with this installation from the start (more than
I'd ever had before). So it may be the driver software, not
the mouse itself, which is at fault. I haven't tried to find
out which yet. I'm just happy that the Logitech optical mouse
(which I think is the one I bought when I built this machine
anyway - if so, I don't know why I replaced it) seems to be
working perfectly (without even the reflective mat which I
thought it would need).

--
Angus Rodgers