New to this forum and I've got a big time problem. I've got older Toshiba laptop running Windows 98. It has been having problems for at least six months. It has been hanging up and giving "system unstable or busy messages". I've run virus scans, registry cleaners, scan disk, you name it. The other day a coworker was messing around and deleted some things from the start menu. The then tried a down load from Microsoft and it wouldn't do it. So he started a registry clean. I finished it and then tried another download from Microsoft. I got an error message which rebooted the computer. When rebooting, it never made it thru. I't also won't reboot in safe mode. I tried a registry restore. It restored it the first time but still wouldn't reboot. Now it won't complete a registry restore. When running scan disk I get a message that two device files are missing. Then when it tries to start windows I get a blue screen of death with the an "fatal exception 0E" error. Any suggestions.

Are you attempting all this using the battery or a power pack?

Have you tried booting with an 98 bootdisk and running scandisk on C: from the floppy?

All that follows is based upon you booting with a 98 floppy bootdisk. At the A:\> prompt you could;

Try another registry restore if there is a known good working backup. The dates can tell you, as you know when the fail started. This may not work however, if important files have been deleted.

Reinstall windows "over the top" of itself. ie; NO format, simply reinstall to C:\WINDOWS. (NOT c:\windows.000). Data and drivers are left intact. You may have to reinstall some Microsoft updates.

I have tried with battery and with power supply. No difference. I'm trying to get a boot disk to try that.

You can get a 98SE bootdisk from here or here.

Once you download the file it must be run to create a bootdisk on one of your floppy disks. Do not just copy the file to a floppy. RUN the file with a known good floppy in your drive.

In order to install windows over top of itself do I need a full blown version on windows?

An upgrade disk (CD) will do. You just have to insert a previous copy of a windows install floppy or CD (when prompted) to provide proof of a previous Windows operating system.

Post back with any further questions or problems.

Good call on the windows reinstall. It brought me back up. Now I just have the original problems. I keep getting "illegal operation" errors. I am trying to update windows 98 to the second addition and get all the critical updates from Microsoft. It will scan and tell me what updates I need, but when I try to download that is when I get the illegal operation errors. These problems seemed to start after downloading IE6. Before the big windows crash I noticed that I had lost Excel. Now I found that Word is also gone. When I try to open them it immediatly starts trying to install them. I am a contractor working for the Forest Service and this machine is an unsupported machine that they supplied to me. In the install process the machine tries to access some files from a Forest Service server that I don't have access to. Is there anyway to get back Excel without buying it? One other problem I'm having; I have problems with the desktop and have to do a Active desktop recovery now and then. Anymore words of advice?

Start keeping track of information about filenames, error numbers, etc when it pops up. If it says it needs xxxxx.xxx write it down and post it here.

"These problems seemed to start after downloading IE6."

Try the IE repair option. Start, Run, msinfo32. When it opens, click on Tools, then the Internet Explorer Repair Tool. It should be at the top of the list. Again, keep track of any filenames etc your cd('s) can't provide.


"When I try to open them it immediatly starts trying to install them. ...... In the install process the machine tries to access some files from a Forest Service server that I don't have access to."

There are probably registry key entries pointing to this server as the authorized installation source. To alleviate the seeking of the server the keys will have to be identified and changed/deleted.


"Is there anyway to get back Excel without buying it?"

What version of Excel and Word do you have? 6.0, 97, 2000?


"....... have to do a Active desktop recovery now and then."

I used to know the answer to this off the top of my head. I'll do some hunting and pop back. I'm still fairly new to this forum, and this should possibly be listed as a new topic, as it is a different element. Hopefully one of the Mod's or someone else will pop in and advise on the answer to the problem and if it should be on it's own. Or, just go ahead and start a new one once you search to see if it's already been answered on this site.

Ok here's the latest. First off I want to apologize for being so long winded. I'm a wireless communications technician and have found that if I let people ramble on sometimes I get the info I need out of things the customer feels is trivial info. It does seem that the problem is related to Internet explorer. Before the big crash I had upgraded to IE6 and was having problems so I downgraded to 5.? In the reinstall, it is so old of a machine the load gave me IE4. I then went to Microsoft and updated to IE6. I had problems with it so I tried to do a repair and it tells me it cannot be repaired so run setup again. I wasn't sure how to do this so I tried to download it again and I got an IE error message then "illegal operation" error. So I tried to restore the last version of IE. That ran into a problem and I got another error that said I have to load windows again, which I did. Once again I tried to download 98 SE upgrade and got the message that I needed to reload a newer version of IE. So now we're back around the loop. I have been having problems shutting down also, it tells me that a program is not responding. When I do a three finger salute (C A D), I get three things not responding Mprexe, lexplore, and Rundll32. The active desktop shutting down is also do to an IE problem. At this point I should dump the machine on my Forest Service supervisors desk and tell him I need a new machine, but with budget cuts there isn't any money for one. It also is getting to be a personal challenge, I hate to give up. I will open a new thread on the active desktop, but I still thing this is all tied together.

Try this;

Start, Run (Copy and paste the following into the run box and click 'run' after each)

regsvr32 Shdocvw.dll

regsvr32 Shell32.dll

regsvr32 Oleaut32.dll

regsvr32 Actxprxy.dll

regsvr32 Mshtml.dll

regsvr32 Urlmon.dll

See if re-registering these files helps. If not, you can download IEradicator2001 to REMOVE IE from your system. This is a tool in my collection which I have not used yet, but I've seen no bad reports on it. (Which is why I've kept it.)

Be sure you read the IEradicator.txt file BEFORE you use it. ie; Once it's done, it's done, no going back without a re-install.

In the meantime, I have a couple of systems I need to get back to, and some web research, but I'll pop back in every 40 : 60 minutes.