Windoze Puter Problems
A simple reference to have on hand is " WIN98 Optimizing and TroubleshootingLittle Black Book " by publisher Coriolis. They might have similar booksfor WIN00, WIN ME and XP too.

A tip in making access to certain resources easier. Instead of makingshortcuts on your DeskTop or DeskTop Tray, make shortcuts to resourceslike " Foppy A, Add New Hardware, Add\Remove Programs etc. " and drop theminto your
C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu directory. Rename with numbers preceeding your shortcuts ie: 1 Floppy A in order of access preference. Now you havethem handy from " Start "
popup menu.

To prevent problems incase of Registry corruption you should makea copy of your Registry and save it to root C:\ and name it Backup.regor something more appropriate, like BurnedAgain.reg.
From " Sart | Run | type regedit | OK | " now click " Registry |Export Registry File |
go to root directory C:\ and save as BackUp.reg.
Every time you add a program or hardware with software you can backit up.
If something goes wrong in any installation process you can retrieveyour previous
Registry and start again. First by uninstalling the problem programthen importing from Regedit.exe.
To import Registry from backup: From " Sart | Run | type Regedit| click OK to run | Registry | Import Registry file browse to BackUp.reg" .

To check Registry for errors: From " Sart | Run | type scanregw |click OK to run "
Use " Find " to see were they are located.
You can use either Scanreg ( MS-DOS ) or Scanregw ( WIN98 ) if theyare in your
C:\WINDOWS root.
" Yes " for Save and a backup cabinet file is created and foundhere C:\WINDOWS\Sysbckup with the name rb000.cab . The cabinet file willhave System.dat
User.dat, System.ini and Win.ini files that can be extracted. Itwould be safe to make a copy of Scanreg.exe ( MS-DOS ) and drop it intoC:\WINDOWS or C:\ , if you have future problems and can only get as faras the MS-DOS prompt.

I am assuming that you have started ScanDisk and Defrag manuallyfrom Start/Programs/Accessories/SytemTools/.

Fact is, the more files you delete... the more your hard drive becomesfragmented.
Over time your hard drive is cluttered with file fragments fromone end to the other.

New files that are created fill open spaces and then some. The "then some" is the placement of a file fragment somewhere else on thedrive. The PC's FAT ( File Allocation Table ) keeps track of these fragmentsso Windows can reconstruct a file so data can be read.
This " fragmentation " causes the physical wear and tear on a harddrive, going here and there retrieving all the the fragments and bringingthem together to make up the file data. Takes time too.
The less fragmented your hard drive is, the more efficient and fasterit runs.
The longer you leave Defragmentation, the greater your hard drivewill be fragmented.
The Defrag program will take longer to run and bring your file systeminto alignment with the contiguous data.

I have been running ScanDisk and Defrag on a daily basis schedulesince Aug 96 with no hard drive problems. My box is on 24/7 at least mostof the time and I setup the ScanDisk and Defrag progs to run sequentiallyalong with other tasks. Set schedule date
to run when your least likely to use your PC.

Task Scheduler maintains the following: ScanDisk for Windows, DiskDefragmenter,
Maintenance-Disk cleanup, Low disk space notification, Tune-up ApplicationStart and
Compression Agent.
Right click on Task Scheduler ( under Date-Time ) at the right bottom/Openand Run your " Add Scheduled Task " wizard.

For ScanDisk, set it up so " type of test " is " standard "and mark check box for
" Automatically fix errors " Unless you have hit your PC witha sledge hammer jarring the read\write heads into the hard driveplatters and trashing the surface along with the data, there wouldbe no need to do a surface check with " thorough ".
To check a problem with ScanDisk run manually with logging, " Start| Programs | Accessories | System Tools | ScanDisk " click on " AdvancedButton " and choose
" Log File " click " OK " and then " Start ". Scandisk.log shouldbe in your root, C:\
directory.

Check your Bootlog.txt in root C:\ to see if there any failures.When you get your system
going again make a copy of this file and name it Bootlog.old orprv or bck and adjust your file type associations so you can bring it upand read it. ie: NotePad as a text association.
" Explorer | View | Folder Options | File Type Tab ". In the futureyou will be able to check differences logged.

To check sound, first see if you are running by right clicking onspeaker icon and choose
" Adjust Audio Properties " . There should be an entry for yoursound card in drop down for Playback and Recording " Preferred Device ".Get your MS WIN98 SE disk into the CD-ROM player.
If you created a shortcut for " Add\Remove Programs " for the "Start menu " click on it otherwise go the long route through " ControlPanel ". The GUI will take awhile to search for installed components.Now choose " Windows Setup Tab | Scroll Down to MultiMedia | Highlightand double left click or left click on Detail Tab " make sure that thecomponents that you want have check marks in them. If you need to reloadone of the components check it off and click " OK " then click "Apply ". The process will search and load the required components fromyour MS WIN98 SE CD-ROM. Check all the other System Resource Componentsand make sure they are checked off.

Save, save save. The interactive GUI's in Control Panel likeSOUND, DISPLAY have
Scheme savers. Name them, find them and save to a floppy, likewisethe text files from
" Start | Run | type in Sysedit | OK ", your system configurationeditor. Make copies of these files. Win.ini gives all informationsrelating to the way your desktop
system operates with [ headings ] in square brackets. ie: [desktop],[Compatibility],and
[Compatibility32] etc..

If you said you uninstalled the Infra Red Cordless Keyboard and Mouse,you most likely
deleted some shared files in the process. If it was stillinstalled, by going into " Control Panel " and clicking on " System| Device Manager | View Devices by Type | Keyboard | " highlight the deviceand left double click on it, you could have checked off Device usage" Disable in this hardware profile " . I don't know whether or not theinstallation
of the InfraRed system removes your regular keybord and mouse settings.If the device for regular 101/102 standard or MS Natural Keyboard and Mousewas still in system then you could have plugged those two back in. Restartyour computer and by default the regular keyboard and mouse would be detectedat start up.

I have added some shorter diagnostics to what Success_Machine hasexplained....
Or maybe longer.
There are a couple of individuals on this board who know there stuff,like C, double incremental C and VB programming. They should offer someinput.

I hope this is of assistance.

regards,