... installed new cursors for the mouse, and now when the computer hangs up, there is not an hourglass, counting down seconds of idle time, but a calendar with the inscription "The system is busy, please wait ..."

Nightmare Dream User

The instability of Windows'98 can bring anyone to white heat and force, spitting on a collection of favorite toys, to seek peace of mind in working with different "lines" and "half-smells." Of course, it's very difficult to deal with this eternal problem of "Windows" because of the main reason for many hangs - 16-bit code in the kernel of the system. And it is not known what percentage of "glitches" is caused by errors of programmers who created this operating system and create various applications for it - these errors can be corrected only by the "creators" themselves, by making us happy with all possible patches, updates and patches for updates. Even the drivers of quite respected manufacturers of computer equipment, the more new, sometimes sin conflicts with each other, with programs and with the Windows itself :) . In addition, a part of the "glitches" arises simply because of a lack of computer resources - working simultaneously with a dozen of necessary and unnecessary programs and forgetting that in the system area of ​​the taskbar there is a dozen more background programs by placing wallpaper on the desktop kilometer-by-kilometer And pestering the neighbors with some other "Nanai" from the collection of MP3 music - we are still indignant: why is this "Mastday" crumbling every half hour? But not everything is so sad! Simply, this whimsical operating system requires a little maintenance, thanks to which it is quite easy not only to fix many "glitches", but (more importantly!) To avoid the appearance of new ones, especially those that arise after installing the left-written programs. In order not to put on the hard drive eight hundred megabytes of Windows'2000 and do not rack your brains, learning to Linux, you can try to minimize to minimum those "Windows" problems, the solution of which, nevertheless, the strength of an ordinary user.
The main rule when working with "Virus98" is to protect system files! Not having their saved copies is extremely difficult not only to restore the "crashed" Windows, but also to eliminate some "glitches". First of all, this applies, of course, to the System.dat and User.dat registry files (if user profiles are allowed, then for each user there is another User.dat file, which is located in the folder C: \ WINDOWS \ Profiles \ username) . Putting out of curiosity a small, harmless program, you can get a huge "GLUCK" due to illiterate changes in the registry, the replacement of a program of some system file with its old version, or in general, the self-made homegrown Kulhackers. Hardly anyone will argue that the newly installed Windows works by an order of magnitude more stable than the system with dozens of programs of incomprehensible origin "hung" on it. Therefore, on a regular basis, save the main files User.dat , System.dat , User.ini , System.ini , Protocol.ini , Control.ini , Autoexec.bat , Config.sys and MSDOS.SYS in the designated daddy and then you can restore the registry And it's easy to fix fatal changes in configuration files. And if you put a trophy program to which you do not have a "crack", then after it refuses to work, restore the registry from these files the way it was before installing it - this will restore its working capacity. Even with experiments with operating system settings, you must have a backup copy of the registry, so that DOS has a chance to restore it, otherwise you are likely to be completely, "in a nutshell," reinstalling the system, because when you install it on an old version, Many settings in the registry are preserved, and to return everything back, not knowing what has changed in it, is almost impossible.
For regular backup of system files and registry, you can use the standard utility "Microsoft Backup" from the Windows'98 drive - in it you will, at your discretion, specify a list of system folders and files to be backed up. However, the restoration of the registry from such an archive using Microsoft Backup is possible only in the Windows environment , so this method can hardly be called reliable. In the process, "Windy98" and themselves daily (with the first successful download) keep their registry and some other critical files in a compressed form for the possibility of its automatic recovery - these files are C: \ WINDOWS \ SYSBCKUP \ rb00x.cab . Using WinZip (although Windows supports this type of archive without it), it's easy to see their contents and use them in case of an easy malfunction when the "Winds" are still working. In MS-DOS mode, the registry of these files is restored by entering the command " SCANREG / RESTORE ", after which you will be able to choose from which backup to restore the registry. By default, Windows'98 keeps the registry copies for the last five days, and you can increase their number by changing the parameter "MaxBackupCopies" in the configuration file of the SCANREG.EXE scan and repair utility - C: \ WINDOWS \ SCANREG.INI (you can even change the setting so , So that other files you select in the same archive are also saved - "Files =" lines). If the "MustDie" really died and does not even want to boot up properly, in the end it will be easier in MS-DOS mode to simply copy separately saved and known working registry files to the Windows folder instead of the corrupted ones. But at the same time move all the files C: \ WINDOWS \ SYSBCKUP \ rb00x.cab to another location, otherwise the system will try to restore the registry from these archives (usually the last file is taken at the time of creation), and there is no guarantee that it will not take the option With the same "glitch". Of course, for normal operation in MS-DOS, you must have at hand a system boot CD or floppy disk with some kind of shell like Volkov Commander.
Another simple and most competent of all listed, the way to reserve the registry, is to create its text copy using the command " REGEDIT / E REGTXT.REG ", entered in the "Run" line of the "Start" button. After executing this command, you will get the REGTXT.REG file on your desktop, which will be this backup. Regularly carrying out such operation (it is better every day :) ), And having, just in case, three or four such files with a known "bumeless" registry (just ask them different names, for example REGTXT1.REG, REGTXT2.REG), you can not only return all the downgraded settings of "Winds" to the original , Working, state, but also reduce the size of the registry files. To do this, load the MS-DOS emulation mode and type " REGEDIT / C REGTXT.REG " at the command line. Note that if in this mode you do not have a DOS-driver for SMARTDRIVE disk caching, this process can take several hours! To use this driver, write the line " LH C: \ WINDOWS \ SMARTDRV.EXE / V " in the C: \ WINDOWS \ DOSSTART.BAT file. The only drawback of returning the registry to the state for a few days before the appearance of "glitches" is that the settings and other programs that you managed to install during this time will be lost. In this case, it is likely that they will have to be reinstalled, which is unlikely to be a great loss when the entire system returns.
But the full restoration of the registry is required only in the hardest cases (although, probably, this is the easiest way to restore the system to life), sometimes you can fix the "glitch" simply by removing the newly installed program or by fixing errors in the registry caused by its installation. Unfortunately, not all programs can completely and correctly delete themselves and return the changed settings in the registry to their original form. For these purposes, there are many so-called "aninstallers" (uninstallers, speaking in Russian) and programs that track changes in the system registry and on the disk. It is always useful to monitor everything that happens during the installation of the program to understand what led to the new "glitches" and fix it. One of these utilities, simple, intuitive, small and very convenient - Ashampoo 99 Deluxe ( http://www.ashampoo.com ). Running it before installing the new program and following the instructions of its installation wizard, you, having pressed just a couple of buttons, get a detailed report about all the changes on the disks, in the registry and in the configuration files. This report will be saved in a special file, and you can at any time remove from the system absolutely all traces of the new program and return all settings to their original state, while you control will literally every step of Ashampoo 99.
Not only changes in the registry can lead to sad consequences. Very often the system starts to "buck" due to spoofing, spoiling or loss of any other system files. Some programs during installation do not compare the versions of existing public files with newly installed files, resulting in a version conflict when writing to an older version of the file. Some programs even manage to replace font files with their non-Russified versions, which makes it impossible to read Russian texts. The standard program from the Windows '98 " System File Checker " - SFC.EXE , located in the C: \ Windows \ System folder - will help to track changes in all files in the system folders. This utility, scanning all the folders, will show the corrupted (this often happens if clusters on the hard drive start to "pour", sometimes "Winds" can be downloaded, sometimes it does not work even in the mode of protection against failures), deleted and modified files and offers to restore Their "native" version from the distribution of "Windows". But do not forget to include in the options of checking the changed and deleted files! By default, they are somehow disabled - intrigues BG.
Maximum reliability, however, will regularly copy all files from the system directory C: \ Windows \ System to a specially allocated daddy on another disk, from which later the lost files will be restored, regardless of whether you were able to boot Windows, or only DOS . It may be bordered on paranoia, but you do not depend on the distribution on the CD-ROM - after all, the corrupted file on it may not be if it refers to some program such as Word97 or Visual Studio, or the drive itself is "chopped off" (by the way, So when installing "Windows" it's better to copy the distribution to the hard drive and put it from it, and not from the CD-ROM). You can archive the entire system folder with the same Ashampoo 99 (or Microsoft Backup), which also has several very useful "features", such as cleaning the disk from temporary files or searching for duplicate files. Even accidentally deleted files in a number of cases are easy to restore, if you do this before they are replaced by new ones, using the Directory Snoop programs ( http://www.briggsoft.com/software.htm ) - from under Windows and EasyRecovery , She's the former Tiramisu ( http://www.ontrack.com/ ), - from under DOS, when the system is not loaded due to the missing file. Tiramisu, by the way, is a unique program, it restores information on disks damaged by viruses, formatted, or recompiled by the FDISK utility. If you, after all, could not find the missing file, it will save you only by searching it on the Internet or on the computer of a friend.
You will receive an even greater level of security when installing new programs if you use in parallel with Ashampoo 99 also a utility that prevents any changes on the disks, but at the same time allows you to install and test any, most unfinished software, up to some viruses . This does not happen? Try to work with the new 9Lives utility ( http://www.duomark.com/9Lives/ ) - with it, unlike the usual "aninstallers", you completely restore the data on the disk, if some program tries to install something during installation, Then add, modify or delete it. The fact is that if you select the "Protected Mode" when you install a suspicious program in the 9Lives menu, which is permanently in the computer's memory, you will create a virtual disk, on which all changes will take place. And only after you are sure that the installed program was not a virus, and that it did not do anything to the system, you can allow 9Lives to actually write all the changes to the disk, or, in case of any trouble, cancel everything , What the new program has done.
Sometimes, there is incompatibility between the drivers of some devices with programs, with other devices, or there is a conflict when distributing system resources between several devices. This is detected by the bright yellow exclamation marks on the Devices tab of the System Properties dialog. In this case, sometimes it helps to remove the conflicting devices on this tab and re-install them according to all the rules after the computer restarts. "Winds" will redistribute resources and eliminate conflicts, or they will have to set interrupts, DMA channels, etc. manually. It is also desirable to have fresh drivers "downloaded" from the manufacturer's website on the Internet, in which, perhaps, all the bugs have been fixed.
Of course, it is much easier to prevent the emergence of "glitches" than to deal with them, but if there is no place to go, and with the system, nevertheless things begin to happen, then try to get rid of them or at least determine the reason for their occurrence using such an approximate technique:

  1. Scan the system for detecting all kinds of errors by programs:

    • Scan Disk or Norton Disc Doctor - search for bad places on the hard drive and file system errors, with mandatory inclusion of test recording. If it is not possible to boot Windows even in Safe Mode, try to "cure" the flashed disk with the same Scan Disk from under the DOS.
    • System File Checker - search for corrupt or spoofed system files. When modifying files, check that the installed version is newer than the previous one. To have a guarantee that all corrupted files can be restored, regardless of the availability of distributions of installed programs, you must regularly reserve the entire system folder.
    • Norton Win Doctor - search for errors in the registry. Do not trust the program to automatically correct errors, try to determine the best method for their elimination. To do this, you should try to find out which program the registry entry belongs to by looking at the branch itself, which WinDoctor signals, sometimes by the file names, by the paths specified there, or the names of the ActiveX controls, it's easy to install the application that generated the error. If this program is deleted, then the registry entry can be deleted, if not, then you need to find out the cause of the error and fix it: most often you just encounter the wrong path to the file.
    Try using other specialized diagnostic utilities, such as DirectX Diagnostic Tool (checking DirectX files, drivers, settings of some devices) or checking the system with Sandra's powerful information package ( http://www.sisoftware.demon.co.uk/sandra ) . Some "glitches" are eliminated by the TweakUI program , which we already talked about in one of the issues of Upgrade magazine.

  2. Track at the time of the emergence of "glitches" for various system events, requests and calls using monitoring programs to try to identify a system error or a failed task. So, by analyzing the registry accesses, you can determine what parameters from the registry are requested at the time of the failure - perhaps one of them is missing or has an incorrect value. And with the help of file access analysis it is easy to understand which files contain the settings of the failed program, and which files are missing.

  3. If the problem disappears when you boot into the "Safe Mode", which most often happens, you can turn off some devices by canceling the launch of background programs, preventing the download of potentially "buggy" drivers and using the driver of the standard VGA- Video adapter, gradually at the same time approaching the Safe Mode, in which, thanks to the use of a minimal set of reliable drivers, and the "glitch" disappears, try to use this method of exclusion to determine the source of the problem. To do this, you first need to start the start menu (by pressing the F8 button when you start the computer) by selecting the Step-by-Step Confirmation mode, bypassing the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS configuration files (often due to the managers Memory or completely superfluous DOS-drivers, for example, EMM386 causes Scan Disk to crash when loading the Russian version of Windows), and also to prevent the autorun of all background programs. Such programs are launched not only from the "Startup" menu, but also from the registry:
    Clues

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Run
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Run
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ RunServices

    And from the file WIN.INI : the lines " LOAD " and " RUN " of the " WINDOWS " section. Do not forget about another file from which some programs can run - Winstart.bat . Here again, utilities such as VxD Monitor and Process Viewer will help. Select the standard VGA video adapter on the Advanced tab of the MSCONFIG.EXE configuration program (this is done in the fault protection mode if the system does not want to boot normally).
    How does this not look like practice, if we talk a little easier? For example, you regularly receive such greetings from "Windows":
    "The program EXPLORER caused an error such and such in the module of such and such.DLL at the address of such and such. "
    Immediately load the "Safe Mode" mode and repeat all operations leading to such a "glitch". If the "glitch" does not appear, then the problem is easily solved. Overload the PC by selecting the step-by-step boot mode, and bypass the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files-again repeat the procedure for calling the failure, and if everything is fine, then look for the culprit of all the problems in these files. If the system still gives an error message, then call the utility MSCONFIG.EXE and cancel the startup of all the modules registered in the registry, and at the same time remove all shortcuts from the "Startup" folder, reload the PC and repeat the same procedure of calling " Glitch ". The next step is to cancel the download of programs from Winstart.bat, Win.ini. Again, we check to see if the failure has not disappeared. Then you put in the same MSCONFIG.EXE on the "Advanced" tab the VGA mode - in case the video card conflicts. And, finally, it remains to find the cause of all the misfortunes in the drivers of virtual and not quite virtual devices. In step-by-step mode, cancel the download of the "driver" drivers - it's VXD-files, or files with extensions. 386, .DRV, which are loaded at the very end. Failed to crash - cancel the "buggy" driver. In the registry you will find it as a parameter StaticVXD somewhere in the section
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ VxD ,
    Or look for a call to this file in System.ini. The program for configuring the MSCONFIG.EXE system from Windows Me makes it very convenient to cancel not only the entire autoload, but also shows all VXD drivers on one of its pages, unfortunately, Win98 unfortunately has to climb in the registry manually.
    It is also necessary to check the errors that occur when the PC is booted and the drivers are initialized according to the report in the file C: \ BOOTLOG.TXT , for which it is convenient to use RegRepair2000 ( http://www.easydesksoftware.com/down.htm ) or Boot Log Analyzer ( http : //www.vision4.dial.pipex.com/ ). Some boot problems (caused by the virus, for example) are eliminated if you re-create the C: system drive by booting from the Windows'98 CD and running the SYS C: command.

  4. To try to return to the original - "Default" - the state of the settings in the registry, in the configuration files User.ini , System.ini and MSDOS.SYS , made with the help of some utilities - WinBoost, MTU Speed, for example. This can be done not only from the programs themselves, but also by restoring the registry and configuration files from their backups. Check in the Control Panel other system settings and monitor the settings in the options used by the applications. Some "glitches" may be just the wrong settings made in the registry by the system administration programs, such as System Policy Editor, and designed to restrict user rights. Because of such restrictions, you can easily "lose" some disk or can not run some applications.

  5. On the Perfomance - File System Properties - Troubleshooting tab of the system properties menu, you can check the box to disable some features that sometimes cause a problem. A similar tab for eliminating some problems is available in the System Configuration Utility (C: \ WINDOWS \ SYSTEM \ MSCONFIG.EXE): General - Advanced . If the computer does not boot, access the menu from the Safe Mode.

  6. Check the BIOS settings and try using the default settings (Load Defaults).

  7. To check up serviceability of the equipment, to test it with the help of such utilities, as:
    Memory Test ( http://www.aha.ru/~alegr/download/memtest.htm ),
    CPU Stability Test ( http://www.saunalahti.fi/jv16/download.html ), and the like. Enable the memory driver HIMEM in the CONFIG.SYS file:

    DEVICE = C: \ WINDOWS \ HIMEM.SYS / VERBOSE / TESTMEM: ON.

  8. Update the system and put the latest "patches" on the Windows Update site ( http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ ).

  9. Reinstall Windows'98. Remember that installing the "Winds" on top of the previous version keeps the settings in the registry, so if the cause of the "glitch" is in the incorrect registry settings, then this reinstallation, most likely, does not fix anything.

  10. Completely erasing the "Windows" folder C: \ Windows, C: \ Program Files and C: \ RECYCLED and setting up the MS-DOS configuration, install Windows "in a nuts".

  11. To put fashionable Linux and forget about "glitches" (and toys).

The nature of many "glitches" is very difficult to understand immediately, and therefore, to work out the correct solution for their elimination, so do not forget not only to regularly remove dust from the computer case (yes, strangely enough, because of it, there are also failures), but also Check the system for viruses, track all changes on disks, in system files, in the registry, periodically visit the site http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ to update the system, fix "bugs", security holes and download new components. Remember that preventing the appearance of a "glitch" is much easier than eliminating it! If you're too lazy to do it manually, trust the care for the viability of Windows'98 programs specially designed for this (this is where the gold mine for programmers!), For example, WinRescue 98 ( http://superwin.com/ ), which automates and greatly facilitates This is an ungrateful occupation. And hope that sooner or later some Windows2098 will become absolutely "bezglyuchnymi", because, although the elimination of some errors "melkosoftom and leads to the emergence of new ones, theoretically their number, still, should decrease, however, on the other hand, everything Depends on the speed of identifying new, yet unknown "bugs" in your favorite "windows".