Fishy, sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you - I've only just noticed your response

Great news to hear that things are running better . Coincidentally, I've been over to my cousins' house this afternoon to fix their INCREDIBLY slow Windows 98 PC. A whole variety of problems, not least of which was far too many things loading at startup that didn't need to. Took FOREVER to reboot! Managed to get their Windows 'free system resources' up from 54% to 68% by following pretty much the same instructions that I gave you. It was certainly noticeably better after that

Going into 'msconfig/startup' (as you've identified) is generally a safe way to stop some more programs from loading each time you boot the PC. The 'msconfig' tool, as far as I remember, doesn't remove anything from the list - it just enables or disables them. This means that, if you disable something and later realise that you needed it, you can just go back in and enable it again. Go on - see whether we can get it up to 70%

Note that a Windows 98 (or 98 SE) system that has been heavily used for a long time (with various programs added and removed at different times) will never quite reach its "as new" possibilities. Even sitting in front of my cousins' PC myself this afternoon and trying everything I could think of, we still only managed to get it up to 68% on bootup. Maybe removing a couple of unused programs would have given me another percent or two but I decided that that was pretty close to as good as it was going to get without formatting and re-installing Windows and everything from scratch. They only had 32Mb RAM though - I reckon you could do a little better!

Hi Sorry Its Taken Me So Long To Reply. Thanks For All Your Help, I Hope You Managed To Sort Out The Computer With The Same Problem. I Shut Down Almost Everything I Could In Msconfig And Managed To Climb To 73% But Still Seems To Drain While Online Even Though I Have Security. I Will Crack It One Day. At Least Your Help Has Meant That Most Of The Time Low Resources Doesn't Happen Too Often.

I Am Sure The System Is Just Overwelmed Like You Said With So Many People Using It, Its Getting Its Self In A Tis, Short Of Reformating The Thing. Going To Upgrade Windows But My Friends Are Still Disbuting Whether Windows Me Or Xp Is Best. Not Fond Of Xp But Heard Friends Complain About Me, So Once The Arguments End We Will See Which System Wins. I Have A Feeling It Will Be Xp Despite My Reservations. Of Course A Few Less Kids On The Thing May Help, And Ditching Aol 9.

Thanks Again For All Your Help And Support. Good Luck With All Family/friends Repairs And Nagging Novices Like Me. Best Wishes Fishy

Even though I don't particularly like Windows XP, I would strongly recommend NOT trying Windows ME! I know quite a lot of people (including myself) that have tried Windows ME on various kinds of systems and I only know of one person that's happy with it.

My preferred operating system is Windows 2000. There's still plenty of life in it (almost everything supporting Windows XP also supports Windows 2000 at the moment) though I can't deny that Windows XP is slightly better at detecting new kinds of hardware if you're thinking of becoming a pioneer of modern computer-integrated households.

The best thing about Windows XP is that you can switch off most of the awful gimmicks like the new style of Start Menu and Control Panel and then it looks almost like Windows 2000 and ends up nearly as quick!

Hi Sorry I have taken so long to reply, thanks for the advise, I will go for windows 2000 I think, thats when i have finished fixing mum's computer. she managed to get a virus which has caused no end of problems, its all good fun,isn't it.

As a catchup, I have now found time to finish sorting out the startup and am up to 79% and haven't had a system resources error for days (I know I am speaking too soon). Next job is to get rid of stray folders from programs the kids have deleted wrongly and the tacky programs they download then never use before I start updating things. Well its winter what else is there to do.

Anyway I will leave you in peace and let you tend to the masses who need your wonderful knowledge and helpful support.

thanks a million for all your help
kind regards
fishy

Thanks for the update Fishy - 79% is much better

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