Posted on 04/14/2008 1:31:41 PM PDT by bt_dooftlook
I have learned over a long-time here that there are many incredibly gifted folks who occasionally pass time here at FR; now I am in need of some help on a technology question.
Since last weekend, he has been getting a pop-up box at startup (post-desktop) asking for him to okay a DST adjustment to the clock and the machine hangs.
As this computer is being used for billing, ne needs to get this computer to boot successfully so that he can send out bills.
So, here's with the questions:
1. Have any Freepers seen this kind of behavior before?
2. Does anyone with a good knowledge of Windows 95 have thoughts on how to troubleshoot this? Are there any system logs or files that would indicate what is causing the hang?
3. In the absence of specific knowledge, does anyone know any good technical forums to which to turn (preferably free)?
As always, thanks for any assistance you can provide...
Tell your relative to cough up a couple hundred bucks and buy a new XP machine and then put old Bessie out to pasture. Where a new machine can be had for around $400 it’ll be cheaper than fixing the old one or paying to deal with its issues.
thoughts on how to troubleshoot this
www.dell.com
Drive over to WalMart or Best Buy and get a new computer.
“Tell your relative to cough up a couple hundred bucks and buy a new XP machine and then put old Bessie out to pasture. Where a new machine can be had for around $400 it’ll be cheaper than fixing the old one or paying to deal with its issues.”
Or at the least buy a copy of Windows 98 from Ebay and update if someone wants to keep a machine that old.
Oh and if the relative insists on keeping it - put a ups on it and never shut the thing off.
Upgrade him to Win98 second edition.. or reinstall Win95 from the cd..
It’s really going to be almost impossible to troubleshoot this.
Find a local shop that might have a computer with XP for sale and have them move his current hard drive into the new computer as the D: drive there.
He could be back up and running in a day this way.
We don’t have enough information. Does this PC go on the Internet? How much RAM? How much free hard drive space, etc.
It does sound like there is a corruption, bad memory or a hard drive sector error somewhere.
Is there a reason why he is using Win95? A needed ISA card? Maybe a finicky DOS app that needs real DOS available?
Win98 Second Edition can be gotten cheaply on ebay. The upgrade version (backup first!) can be used on the existing box to clear some problems. A Windows 2000/XP box (NOT Windows Me) can be gotten for under $100. I routinely purchase HP Vectra VL420’s (1.7 Ghz P4) used for workstations, and they behave well. (No USB 2.0, but we don’t need that, and neither does your friend.)
To fix this, you can remove and upgrade the printer driver. To do this:
Click on Start
Click on Settings and than Printers
Use your Windows CD to reinstall printer drivers
NOTE: If you happen to have network printers, start with any drivers that may be offline or you can no longer connect to. Fax drivers, Adobe® Distiller, PaperPort® are also considered printer drivers by WordPerfect and could also be causing problems. If you happen to have PaperPort v7.0, please visit PaperPort’s website at http://www.scansoft.com and obtain the latest Service Pack for your product which addresses known compatibility issues with WordPerfect.
Another way you may be able to fix this, without upgrading Word Perfect drivers or your OS, is simply to move Word Perfect into your startup folder so it starts w/ your machine.
You can also attempt to restore the stored print information for Word perfect. This is a last resort, but to do this:
Click on ‘Start’ and go up to ‘Run’
Type in regedit into the ‘Open:’ box. Click on ‘OK’
Scroll up to the top of your screen until you see ‘My Computer’
Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Corel
Right click on the folder ‘PrintEngine’ and go down and left click on ‘Rename’. Change the name to PrintEngineOld
Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Corel\WordPerfect\13(or '12', '11' or ‘10' if your using that version)
Right click on the folder ‘Envelope’ and go down and left click on ‘Rename’. Change the name to EnvelopeOld
Scroll up to the top of your screen untill you see 'My Computer'.
Click on the ‘-‘ to close the folder ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER’
Click View, Refresh.
Close the registry editor.
The first thing I would do is replace the “watch battery” on the motherboard.
could be a corrupt registry
if you have the Win 95 disc you could try reinstalling 95,
or if the hard drive is not real old you could back up the necessary files, reformat the drive and then reinstall 95... or
get a new(er) machine...
If the Hard drive is making considerable noise or lots of accessing, it might need replacing, in which case,
a new machine is your best solution —good luck!
I stand corrected.
Get him to switch to XP ASAP
XP will only be sold until this June, so if he waits past then he will only be able to get a computer with Vista and this problem he’s experiencing now is chicken scratch compared to the hell that awaits him with Vista.
Buy a new WinXP pc.
Buy this software:
http://www.laplink.com/pcmover/
Buy a cable depending on what connections the current win95 machine has (also might want to try to install a network card on the old PC to migrate faster).
Update the new XP PC through Windows Update.
Use the software to migrate the entire Word Perfect program and any other programs to the new Windows XP PC.
Store the old PC in a dry cool location and sell on Ebay in 20 years.
My first thought also.
As for upgrading to Win 98, unless he has at least 128megs. of memory, don't.
I had a Dell P200 w/ 64megs of RAM.( that was the max)
I upgraded to 98 2nd ed. so I could network my computers.
What a mistake. Anything I wanted to do caused the box to dip into the virtual memory. The harddrive was constantly clacking away. And SlOOOOOOw!
Finally went back to 95, ahh. So refreshing
Honor is due.
:O)
It sounds as if the computer is trying to auto-check the time and make an adjustment to daylight savings.
I don’t recall whether MS issued an upgrade for W95 when the DST dates changed. You might check their website.
Otherwise, turn off the DST auto-update and do it manually. (There are some little programs you can download to check the time, if needed.)
==
I had a problem is WinXP SP1 not being able to connect to the ‘time’ servers because MS has changed feature. In SP2 it does work.
Does the person have indoor plumbing? He at least needs to upgrade to W2000. That’s where I am. I have used XP on other machines a lot and still prefer W2000, actually. I remember playing those games with W95back in the olden days and the Blue Screen of Death.
Bingo.
Is this computer standalone or on a network.
((and what’s the battery got to do with anything?))
Holy crap, your relative is doing his billing on a computer that’s about the same age as my middle-schooler? What’s the name of his company so that I can make sure to avoid it?
With very littlke effort, one can obtain a copy easily and it is more robust and stable than Win95.
Plus it will run all programs that currently run on Win95 leaving all the problems you described in the dust.
Just a suggestion. Freepmail me if you like hints on where to get a copy of Win98se.
Dell usually sells PCs for $400-$500 including flat panel monitors. Tough to beat that deal. You can’t even build your own that cheap.
when using msconfig you might want to start up in safe mode so that you don't have to deal with the normal boot issues he's having. press f8 just after the bios finishes.
I’m sure you expected 59999999 people to tell you to upgrade didn’t you?lol. I never cease to be amazed at the # of people willing to provide you with an answer to a question you didn’t ask.
Anyway, the most important thing you need to do is get a back up of the data off of the pc. You can try booting into safe mode
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/122051
If you get into safe mode, you can troubleshoot easier there. But my recommendation is to make a backup pronto. Boot into safe mode. Try to fix the problem. If you can’t fix the problem with someone’s help (you are probably not going to get useful advice here because we can’t interact with the PC ourselves), then take all of these people’s advice and get a new pc. Most importantly, get the data off of that artifact.
We have backups of the data, but need to get the computer to boot properly...
Oh, and it is not on a network, so malware infection risk is minimal...
Thank you for the detailed response - I was very curious about the WordPerfect-hang problem!
2008... glad you could join us.
I still have a computer that I run W95 on. I believe that replacing the battery is the thing I would check first. It was my first thought, and I’m glad to see mad... beat me to the post.
I love how fast that machine boots up, and I do a lot of my quick note-taking on it, and then simply turn it off. Nice to have so little operating system overhead.
mnehrling’s “printer driver” suggestion is probably the solution to the WP situation, though.
Probably so. What I did know about WP I lost years ago!!!
Are you saying that the weak battery is causing the computer to try to change to DST? BTW, I unclicked ‘Automaticaly adjust for DST’ while in safe mode and rebooted - still got lock-up.
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