Windows 98 slow or crashing alot? get help & support

Classic windows 98 symptoms:
¤ Super slow to boot shutdown and even move the mouse and open programs
¤ Crashing all the time (blue screen of death)
¤ Applications crashing all the time
¤ Freezing on boot or during normal operation

Long term FIX? The obvious answer is to upgrade to windows XP with new hardware! but if you depend on windows 98 for other reasons such as software that specifically only runs on windows 98 (like many people or companies still do) then we have created a list of steps to help you cope with having to run windows 98.

Common misconceptions, Most people think if the Windows 98 is slow then put in more ram to speed it up. This is not the case in Windows 98. A good amount of RAM (Memory) is 128MB to 512MB of memory. Windows 98 will actually become more unstable if you add more then 512MB of RAM to your system.

Steps to make your windows 98 run more stable

Standard windows 98 maintenance
¤ Remove all old programs you are not using, this can be done through the add/remove programs in the control panel.
¤ Clean your old files and internet explorer cache and cookies
¤ Defrag your Hard drives
¤ Disconnect any unused network drives and disable any network or dailup connections you do not use
¤ Run a spyware and antivirus program such as spybot search and destroy
¤ Run a Registry cleaner such as fixmypc
¤ Run msconfig and remove all unneeded startup programs

Windows 98 specific tweeks
¤ if you have more then 128MB of memory you should use Conservative Swap file usage you can do this by:
in System.ini in Notepad. edit the [386Enh] section of the file, on a new line type: ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1 (leave a single blank line between the last line in [386Enh] and the next section)

¤ Tweak the VCACHE
in sysedit edit the System.ini file subsection [vcache] then and add the following:

MinFileCache= nnn
MaxFileCache= nnn
ChunkSize= nnn
(nnn represents a number, multiple of 2)

‘MinFileCache’ and ‘MaxFileCache’ should be the same ( about 25% of your RAM ) to avoid resizing. ‘ChunkSize’ should generally be ‘512’, but you can omit that one. You should set MinFileCache and MaxFileCache to about 25% of your total RAM for best performance, i.e 8190 for 32Mb RAM, 16384 for 64Mb, 32768 for 128Mb…

These are sample settings from one of our PCs ( 256Mb RAM, Windows 98 )
[vcache]
MinFileCache=65536
MaxFileCache=65536
ChunkSize=512

¤ Turn on “network server mode” for the file system

¤ Make windows not handle pagefile and set pagefile manually (equation is 512- physical ram for max pagefile min should be 32-64)

¤ DMA mode – turn this on for faster disk access (may have issues with older hardware)
¤ in dos run scanreg /fix and scanreg /opt (this fixes and optimizes the registry from the dos level)

Need more help? call Netdigix for all your Windows consulting and support services. Call the sales line at 604-518-6695