Windoze IE keeps crashing/freezing whenever I try to type anything (posting this by sheer luck). Directional arrows crash me every time and same thing when I try to cut an paste. Most of my programs aren't functioning properly and my graphics are acting weird, turning diff. colors when I click certain things. Running Win95 and IE 5.5. Virus scan and a seperate trojan scan come up clean. Email is crashing on me too. Think that covers it all. Is there anything I can do or is my hard drive ruined? Would a re-install of Win95 fix this? ARGH....

Is this the original installation of Win95 from way back then? The crap _does_ become corrupted after a while. Is your virus scanner up to date? Are you running any "performance increasing" (NOT!) utilities? Did you change anything in the setup? Which version of Win95 are you running? (DOS Window, type ver and hit enter). Did you get the updates from the Microsoft webpage? What do you mean by "directional arrow"?

How big is your harddrive (=is it worth replacing it with a bigger one), how much and what kind of RAM do you have (=is it worth trying different RAM modules), what kind of CPU does the computer have?

Anything older than a P I 233, or smaller than a 4 gig harddrive, or less than 64 megs of RAM, or all of the above:

[img]http://www.qsl.net/rv0ajh/images/creatu7.gif[/img]

try running scandisk. start\programs\accessories\system tools\scandisk, run it on your harddrive, sometimes this will fix corrupted or missing core files and registry files

unning Win95 Version 4.00.950. Not sure if it's the original install, bought it used (....). Plenty of room on the hard drive. Another thing I remembered is that while doing a systems diagnostics check, it will stop at about 10%.
Directional arrows=those 4 keys between Ctrl and 0/Ins on the keyboard. Only thing I can think of that I've done is changing the resolution and then changing it back. That's when the graphics started "bleeping".

Sorry for typos.

Forgot to mention that I have to run scandisc almost daily just to get the thing up and running. Also have de-fragged and done re-installs of IE.

bump

Your hard drive is probably fine considering all the things that *are* working.

Can you give more detail on what happens with the changing graphics/colors when you click on certain things?  Which certain things did you click on?  What changed with the graphics/colors?  Is it random?  Does it always do the same thing?  If it is random, give a couple examples...etc.

----------
Edited to add that the behavior in general sounds like a virus, but the specifics don't remind me of anything I've seen.  What virus scan program are you using and how recent are its virus definition files?  (You should be able to find this info under the About or Help-About tab of the virus scan program.)

McAfee is the anti-virus. Not updated though... This is another thing. Almost every time I download a program (anything w/.exe), it will come up with security certificate is invalid.

As for the graphics, it usually happens during log-on (the background will change from red to aqua. After entering my password, my wallpaper will turn various colors before my icons appear. Usually it turns kind of transparent/yellowish with gree/purple streaking. If my firewall engages due to inactivity, the whole screen will do this as well when I dis-engage the lock. Also, emoticons will come up as little colored boxes.
Aside from when my wallpaper blinks, the rest of this stuff happens randomly.

I'm going to get Panda Anti-Virus here shortly.

Would I be able to play my video games on those systems? The requirements just say Win95/98. Bear in mind I'm a computer idiot for the most part...

Typically, if it was written for Win 95/98, it will work on Win 2k, in my experience.  I don't have Win XP, but I assume it's the same way.  There are a few old DOS games that might have trouble because Win 2k/XP have changed memory management, but that shouldn't affect stuff written for Win 95/98.  I've tried several old 16-bit applications that have all worked on Win 2k.

I don't know what to think about the colors changing.  I haven't seen that before.

If applications don't work right away under XP, right click on the shortcut to the program, and edit the compatibility properties. XP will then pretend to be 95, 98/ME, NT4.0 Service Pack 4, or 2000.



I knew what to think of it ;) That's why this was the first thing I changed. You can keep the new candy store layout, you can switch the complete GUI to look like 2000, or you can just modify your settings to something easier on the eye:

[img]http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/screen1.jpg[/img]

[img]http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/screen2.jpg[/img]

Sounds like an OS corruption problem, most likely.

Just for grins, bring the system up in Safe mode, using the default VGA resolution and see how the system runs.  If it works, it's probably a driver problem.

If it fails in Safe mode, reinstall the OS, or upgrade (2K is a good choice).

WinXP runs much old stuff, and has a tool to help set up old apps.  There are a few things that won't run, but I do have old DOS / CGA games running.

...by hitting the F8 key repeatedly during the boot process...

Thanks for the help. Looks like a re-install is in order.