HELLO EVERY ONE,


I emptied my temp. internet files and also on purpose deleted Macromedia Flash Player 8 and Macromedia Shockwave player as well as Yahoo Pool 2. I deleted them to the recycle bin and than emptied the bin.Did not realize that I would not be able to get them back.As I was doing this it was storming outside.my computer cut off for an instant and than rebooted.I have surge protectors.The next time (a half hour later} I saw that Yahoo game Bejeweled 2 will not load,just a big X in corner,usually a box comes up and says "do you want to install and run the POP Caps Loader,it would not load no matter what i did so i tried yahoo pool.Same thing so i figured i needed the macromedia shockwave player download as it probably had files needed. For 3 days now I have tried and although it starts to download...it stops and says everything required to down load is not here....Hmmmmmm!.....Double checked all security,all java,privacy settings, everything enabled. so even though I had uninstalled it from add/remove programs, I downloaded the uninstall flash player..tried again....same thing...than downloaded most current Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 sp1..went through that stuff......reinstalled ms 6.0 sp1 and did custom install of macromedia Player.Internet install box says its installed but, it is not in my add/remove program list. So I got a cd-rom windows 98 upgrade and installed that but near the end I got box that said Java Package Manger Unable to install Java packages from c\windows\java\classes\win32ie 4.cab next message was.....unable to install java packages from c\windows\classes\xmldso4.cab .....next message..unable to install java packages from c\windows\SYSTEM\dajava.cab. so.between deleting stuff on purpose and uninstalling and reinstalling the player and the browser and the upgrade i am totally confused.....lol..i also tried scanreg /restore and tried that thinking it might work....to no avail...i don't know if it the java part or something in the macromedia players .its strange because i cannot play games although i can send and receive mail and stuff....even download photos from e- mails but on other web sites......notta!..acrobat reader works on some things and not on others....any help would be great because.......I _dunno?....THANK YOU PEOPLE!!!!!

Hi, Dunno.

Sounds as if you've caused some serious problems. When you say you deleted things, do you mean that literally? Did you delete folders instead of using Add/Remove Programs?

If so, you must understand that you leave a lot behind. The registry is full of items that belong to those programs. It will probably be necessary to do a clean install. If you can, you need to back up everything you don't want to lose, including files, pictures, favorites, email, any settings you need, such as phone numbers for your ISP. Then you need to format the C: drive and start the Windows install fresh.

When you do a repair install, some of the things that weren't removed from the programs are still there.

There's a chance that you can solve all these problems, but to me it doesn't seem likely - the frustration you've already gone through is more than the time it would take to start fresh.

If you don't know how to do these things, we're here to help.

Hello, and welcome to Bleeping Computer.

Have you tried to install a different version of JAVA and Adobe? Since the different versions use different registry HKeys it may install around the original install. This may or may not work.

Try installing Acrobat Reader 6, at this site. I believe it will be more compatible with '98. You should install any previous versions of Acrobat before installing this one.

http://www.download.com/3001-2378-10205470.html

This is the latest version of JAVE Runtime for Windows. You can install this over the exsisting version, but it will not hurt to uninstall the old version especially since we believe it maybe corrupted. The program you need is one of the first two. The first one will download completly to your hard drive. If you are on dialup this would be your best choice. If you are on DSL or cable option two would be practical. It will install as you download.

Good luck and keep us up to date.

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp

Dunno, it's better to keep messages in the thread than to send emails. There are far more people reading here who can help, and a lot of people can also be helped by reading through the thread.

You cannot go through your computer deleting things willy-nilly. Programs have uninstall features and must be uninstalled from the Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs. Removing a bit here and there just mucks things up.

When you say that you thought about taking Win 98 out completely but the computer advised against it because you're on a FAT32 system, I don't know what you're saying. All Windows 98 is a FAT32 system - that's the filesystem used. (Windows XP is NTFS filesystem)

All you would have to do to keep your computer from restarting is delete the wrong file somewhere. Restoring the registry won't replace lost files, just registry entries.

The only thing your computer automatically backs up is the registry - and it only backs up copies of the last five days that your computer was restarted. It does not back up your personal files and folders, your email, your favorites, your address book, your kids pictures, your music or anything that you've put on it. You are required to learn how to do that yourself. If there is something that you do not want to lose, you must back it up.

And I still believe that the only way you're going to get this fixed is to reinstall Windows from scratch after formatting the drive. All your data that you do not have backed up will be lost. That means you must burn it to CD or find some other way to save it. (Unless you have nothing that you want to keep.) If your data is backed up and you can restore it, then a re-install of Windows 98 will take far less time than what you're spending trying to patch it. The FAT32 filesystem isn't that good, and registry entries pile up over time and slow things down. It's not a bad idea to reinstall Win 98 at least once a year anyway.

Herk,
Thanks for the information.I have learned the hard way not to delete when I dont know what it does.The Fat 32 I was talking about..........when I go to add/remove and click remove a sign comes up that says.Warning.if you uninstall win 98,any programs you installed while running win 98 will have to be reinstalled You may also have to reconfigure your swapfiles. Warning...Do Not uninstall if you have compressed your hard disks or converted to a fat 32 file system after setting up win98.....END>>>>I got this computer from my sister 18 months ago and have no idea how to reformat........what do i have to do to reinstall win 98 from scratch.if i uninstall win 98 will computer still start and operate? I dont want to be without it altogether...right now it still works as far as send/receive e-mails etc. and can still look up stuff on the web...just no games or acrobat reader....people in thread said to try acrobat 6 and i have it on my desktop but when try to install it says.."This operating system is not supported so set-up will not continue..and on java runtime stuff it says min requirements is win 2000 or ME mine is win 98.......i dont have much to save but will someone tell me step by step how to do.....Thanks to everyone who reads this and i am sorry for being such a you know what.........thanks.I do have some e-mails from deceased parties that I would like to save to disk and a few photos......thanks

Hi, Dunno ~

Windows 98 is not a stable operating system. Over time, lots of crud builds up. When I was heavily into gaming, I used to format the drive and re-install Windows from scratch every three months to keep it clean.

So it's time for you to learn how. Don't be in a hurry. The first thing you need to do is get everything backed up. There are a number of ways to do this, but since you haven't been doing it, you may not be prepared for it. First of all, do you have a CD burner? That's probably the best way. It's impossible to have a backup of anything with floppy disks because nothing fits on them anymore. If you can save your important things to CDs, you can reinstall them easily.

There are two kinds of hard drives: those that have failed and those that will. If you have data that you cannot bear to lose, it must be backed up. It's like putting the deed to your property on the roof and hoping the wind doesn't blow.

If you have a CD burner, you need software to burn with. Most burners come with something. If not, I can suggest a burning program that will work for you.

The object is to first gather things that you need to keep. You need to open Internet Explorer and export your favorites. You need to go into Outlook Express if that's what you use and export your address book and email. You need to have all your passwords written down and the sites that they go to. Anything you forget will be gone forever. Anything that does not copy well will be gone forever.

Most people save things to My Documents. Sometimes, programs like Microsoft Word make another folder like My Files. Wherever you have things saved, they must be backed up. Most people who don't have a lot of stuff can get it easily onto a single CD. But you can back up to as many CDs as you need. Redundancy is good. If you have a checkbook program, it must be backed up. If you can back up to more than one place, such as a thumb drive or floppies, this is good. (I back up my business programs to a flash card, a CD/RW, floppies, and the hard drive to later be backed up to CDs, every time I use them.)

Individual important emails can be backed up by choosing the File menu and Save As. Those are small enough to save to floppies. (Keep in mind that sometimes older floppy drives don't work well anymore and can stop reading and writing about halfway through the disk)

And let's hope your floppy works OK because you need a boot floppy. You need to make it if you haven't got one already. (Something that should be done when you first get the computer.) To do this, go to the Start -> Settings -> Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. Click the "Startup" tab. Put a clean floppy in the drive and click Create Disk.

Test the disk. Put it in the drive and try restarting your computer. The computer should boot from the disk - it will boot into DOS, not Windows, and it will ask you if you want to boot with CD-Rom support. You do. Once booted, it will simply be a daunting black screen with an A: prompt like this:

A:\>

And you'll have to figure out what to do from there. Although DOS is very complicated, you don't need to know much of it to reinstall Windows. If your disk works, you can simply type:

cd windows

. . . and you'll be moved to a Windows directory. Then type:

win

. . . and you'll start Windows. Take the disk out of the drive and mark it Win 98 Startup Disk.

To do all the above, you should be comfortable making and naming folders. For instance, when saving Emails, it would be much easier to find them later when you create a folder like "saved_emails_01" (without the quotes) and save your emails to that folder.

For each of the things mentioned above, you can find how to do it with Google. Or you can simply ask for more help here and I or anyone else will be happy to help you. And here is a pretty good guide for re-installing Windows. I always reinstall from the CD, though they recommend copying files to the hard drive first. Once you've got everything backed up, test it to make sure it works. Put the CD with your email and/or other files in the drive and open it with Windows Explorer (by going to My Computer or with the keystrokes: Windows key +E) - find the CD and then navigate to the email you want to open and double-click it. It will open in a window and you'll be able to read it and do whatever you want with it. Open your favorites folder and make sure that everything is listed. You'll be able to re-import the favorites after the install.

Download an antivirus like AVG and burn it to CD so that you can have an antivirus installed before you connect to the internet. You should also download such things as Spybot S&D, Ad-Aware Personal, Spyware Blaster, and a firewall like Zone Alarm. Once you've got 'em on CD, you can install them before setting up your internet account. Then you won't get attacked with your new clean system.

One other serious problem can be drivers. You will need drivers for all your hardware. If you have an audio card, a video card, a network card and/or modem, you will need to be able to reinstall programs and drivers that came with them. This is one of the hardest problems with re-installing, especially when someone gave you the computer and not the disks or manuals that came with it.

If the computer is an HP or some other branded one, you may have a complete restore system that will restore both the operating system and the drivers and everything the computer came with. It will not restore anything you've you've added. Any programs like Word, Word Perfect, Microsoft Money, Quicken, and so on, will need their original install disks and licenses.

The Windows startup disk can be used to rescue your computer when it won't start at all. It can be used to begin the setup of the Windows install.

Don't be afraid - this is stuff millions of Windows users have been doing since before 1995 and you can learn it. And once you learn how to back up your data, you will feel much more comfortable about it, and far less likely to ever lose it. You should do it regularly because you never know when your ancient power supply will decide it's been working long enough and fry the entire computer. You can get a new computer, but data loss is forever.

Herk, thank you for the detailed reply. I loved the part of the deed of my home on the roof....lol....but you are right...thats about what it amounts to. Now a question,I do not have a cd burner so how do i proceed from here? You were also correct in thinking I have no manuals or instructions.If the wires were not color-coded it probably would have taken me a lot longer to get myself in trouble....lol....My sister has a racehorse farm and 3 desktop PC s as well as 2 laptops and was going to trash this one when i said i would like to have it as i could not afford to buy one.She just packed it in a box and sent it...no books no nothing,and i knew even less about computers than......than i do now so if you don't mind telling me how to do stuff.........i would be grateful......Thank You Herk..........>>>>>>>UPDATE>>>>> finally got java runtime2 to downloaded and installed even though it warned "not recommended for this system(win98} it did install successfully,also got acrobat reader 5.0 to install....Sill have Acrobat Reader 6.0 on desk top as am afraid to delete anything anymore.How do I get stuff off my desk-top when it wont go into a created folder? I put in briefcase and shows copy of it in briefcase but am still afraid to delete off of desk-top. Sign me a ignorant begginner because i just Dunno? This computer was in her barn with the horses.....lol

Dunno - you can delete icons from your desktop without disturbing the programs and files they connect to. One of the first things you might want to do is download a little program called Magical Jellybean Key Finder. This jewel will tell you what your Windows key is. That way, you'll be able to write it down and have it when/if you ever re-install. It's the license key that goes with the operating system/computer.

Wouldn't hurt to ask your sister if she has the original Windows disk since the computer could soon become a paperweight without it. But it sounds as if you're recovering from some of your problems.

If you want to save files somewhere else so that you can return them to your desktop later if necessary, simply right-click on the desktop and choose "new folder" and then give it a name. Then, right-click on the desktop item you want (other than, say, My Computer or other Windows-specific icon), and choose "cut" then open the folder and click "paste." Ctrl-x and ctrl-v will work as good as the mouse commands. Ctrl-c to copy, ctrl-v to paste, ctrl-x to cut.

Briefcase has sort of a special use.

As to getting the files off the computer, you don't have many choices. You can get a CD-burner or you can use a thumb drive, either of which will probably set you back about $50 at most. The CD-burner is much more likely to be of use to you than the thumb drive, since you don't have another computer to store the files on. Storing them on CD's is cheap once you've got the drive - figure about $.33 for a disk that holds 750MB. If you currently have a CD-Rom, you could replace it with the burner with little trouble, not much more than taking the cover off the case, unplug the power, take off four tiny screws and the power and IDE cable, then replace them like they were. The burner will come with software that you should be able to use to burn those files you don't want to lose. It will come with instructions. You do not need to install new drivers because an ATAPI drive will be recognized. Lite-On makes exceptional drives at great prices. (I'm using both Lite-On and LG in my main computer.)

Another option is to find online storage. In the long run, this will cost you more because you have to pay every month to keep your data. On the other hand, even if your house burns down, you can still get your data back. Short of nuclear attack, it should be safe. The downside is that if you're on dial-up, transfer can take a long time. There is free online storage, but I don't know what the catch is. Maybe you have to look at advertising while you upload or download.