[BoardC3]

Alright my computer has been very wacky recently. Its been freezing up quite a bit, and slowing down alot. Its a P4 1.5 256 ram and a Geforce 2 mx vid card. It freezes most of the time when my parents use AOL (IVE BEEN TRYING TO TALK THEM OUT OF USING IT) and it slows down while playing warcraft. I got this windows error message that said that it was "dangerously low on resources" (too be exact), and often when it crashes or freezes it will first say that there is an error in kernel32.dll . Im using Windows ME, and i think i can cure it by getting rid of the programs that start with windows but i can not remember how to do it. I know that there is a different thing then just deleting them from the startup folder because this happened on an old comp about 5 years ago but i forgot what to do. I consider myself to be pretty good with computers, im not one of those people that can barely get on the internet, I do some programming and have been using comps since i was about 5 (im 16 now). PLEASE HELP, MY DADS GETTING PISSED AT ME!!!!!! BTW he blames it all on warcraft 3 for some reason but ive told him that hes wrong and that it sells millions of copies so its obvious that its not a problem with it because it would have been fixed by now.

 

[shivohum]

See this page. But be careful... you might want to jot down the current settings before playing around.

Also, you should really encourage your Dad to upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. They don't have these resource problems.

 

[BoardC3]

interesting i didnt know that maybe i should push him towards getting that. BTW forgot to say that there are no icons on the desktop, my little sister wanted to change the background and it somehow went over the icons. The shortcuts are in c:/windows/desktop but dont show up. Ill check out the website thanks,
chris

 

[ai0tron]

Yeah upgrade the OS, get more memory. 256 is really nothing these days. Uninstall any craptacular programs you don't really need.

Plus, you may just need to do a total reinstall of everything. I have heard that this is pretty much common fare with people running win 95/98/Me. The OS is seems to be pretty darn unstable and to use it continually over long periods of time can result in a practicaly unusable suystem... Its happened to many friends and myself. I've had to resinstall everything more times than I care to remember... When I switched to Win NT things got better. But it wasnt until Win 2000 that the long term stability problems with my systems finally went bye-bye for good.

 

[rickcr42]

well...........if you are really brave....go to C/windows/options/cab , find the windows cabs and re-install windows over your present windows.

It should leave all your present settings intact

 

[andrzejpw]

go to your start menu, go to run. Type msconfig. There, you can look at the programs that load when windows starts up. There may also be some in the registry, but lets see what we can do here first.

 

[BoardC3]

alright i found out that about 1/2 the programs that were running didnt need to be so that was fixed. I talked to my dad and told him what i did and how a lot of other people were suggesting the upgrade and he was just like lets go up to staples tomorrow and get it. so i guess the 2 month old problem was solved in less than 15 minutes of trying. When i install Win XP will it clear my HD and the programs on it?
Thanks alot everyone,
chris

 

[N@Z]

My current PC ran on ME originally (PIII, 733Mhz, 128MB RAM, 20GB H/D). It was ok until I started installing all manner of programs on to it, crashing on a weekly basis at its worst.

My vendor advised me to install Win 2K on it so I did it together with some upgrades (1.0GHz, 256MB RAM, 40GB H/D). It has been nearly a year now with probably about an average of 1 crash every few months.

Time for an upgrade soon... thinking of going wireless. Should I stay with Win 2K or try XP home or Pro? Any recommendations for wi-fi notebooks? Or should I wait for the upcoming wi-fi PDAs?

 

[shivohum]

Quote:

When i install Win XP will it clear my HD and the programs on it?

Nope. Just choose to "upgrade" your installation instead of doing a completely new installation, and everything should stay the same.

By the way, you should qualify for the upgrade edition of XP Home if you have a proper copy of Windows ME...

 

[andrzejpw]

Quote:

Originally posted by BoardC3 alright i found out that about 1/2 the programs that were running didnt need to be so that was fixed. I talked to my dad and told him what i did and how a lot of other people were suggesting the upgrade and he was just like lets go up to staples tomorrow and get it. so i guess the 2 month old problem was solved in less than 15 minutes of trying. When i install Win XP will it clear my HD and the programs on it? Thanks alot everyone, chris

Well, for it to clear your programs, you'd have to reformat. ie: start from scratch. I recommend you do this anyway, because you really want to take advantage of the NTFS file system(yeah, I know you can convert), and you really don't want to carry over your old mess. Besides, 9x kernel -> NT kernel is just scary.

So, backup all of your data, yup, all of it(may want to hold off until the weekend, or at least until you don't need the computer for a while, just in case). Then, boot from the WinXP cd, and hold on.

 

[BoardC3]

I really dont want to delete all programs because alot of them were borrowed and installed, and moving 1000+ MP3s would be quite the pain in the ass. If it doesnt work perfectly then ill reformat.

 

[andrzejpw]

Thats the thing boardC3. Although it may be a pain to "get over" that hill, and it might take up your entire day, getting everything organized the first time would help you in the future.

Personally, I've never had good experiences with OS upgrades. If your computer is behaving slugishly with the programs it has running now, why would a larger OS help?

If you want, you can use a program like Drive Image 2002. You could backup, install windows, drivers, programs, etc, then, make an image. This would let you reimage your computer everytime you wanted to "refresh" it, and it would be much faster and easier to do so in the future.

 

[00940]

This kind of problems just makes me think to my old computer. Pretty similar crashs, you should try to test your RAM. I gonna try to find back the test programme I used, it could save you money and time.

> ai0tron : 256mo are far more than needed to surf with ME.

Edit: programme found : http://www.memtest86.com/memt30.zip

It creates a boot disk with the test programme.

 

[ai0tron]

Yes, but you forget, he is using... AOL!

A notorious system hog. At least, the last time I used the POS it was.

 

[00940]

true, I forget.

Sincerely, if these problems are new, it's probably due to a degradation of the RAM.

Btw, how many time since the last defrag ?