I was wondering if you might have a clue on a problem that I am experiencing during an upgrade of Windows 3.1 to Windows 98. The machine is a 486/66 with 16MB ram and a Panasonic CD-ROM. The upgrade goes well up until Windows 98 tries to fire itself up fully. It stops and displays the message: While initializing device IOS: Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer. On a restart I bought the machine up in safe-mode and all was OK (except that my Panasonic CD-ROM - is not part of the default drivers available in safe-mode). I went through the boot step-by-step again, and noted that the CD-ROM and sound driver both loaded happily and Windows stopped after the Windows drivers were loaded. Looking at the Microsoft webpage I noted two things (i) the error is due to the use of ’smartdrv’ (which we don’t use) or an IRQ conflict. (ii) this error appeared under Windows 95 and was not supposed to occur in Windows 98. I figured that the problem was due to the sound card or CD-ROM so I ‘rem’d' them out of the config.sys etc and rebooted. No attempt to load these drivers was made, but we still get the same error and Windows 98 does not come up in full mode. Any ideas or clues on how to hunt down this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Windows Protection Errors are caused when an error occurs when loading a Virtual Device Driver (VxD) before the Windows desktop is loaded. The reason why your computer is still receiving this message even when you ‘rem’d' out the device drivers in the Config.sys file is that you have only disabled the DOS drivers. Windows has its own set of drivers for sound cards and CD-ROM drives which are more difficult to disable. The best way to hunt down the source of the problem is by process of elimination. Start by ‘remming’ out the drivers for the sound card and CD-ROM, then physically take out the sound card from the motherboard and disconnect the data cable from the CD-ROM drive. If your computer then boots up OK you have narrowed down the problem to one of the devices you have disconnected. Place only one of the devices back in and then if the computer continues to boot up OK then you have narrowed down the problem to the device that remains unconnected to the computer. Consult the manual supplied with that device or speak to technical support advisers associated with the device manufactures. If none of this works then you can safely assume that it is a problem with Windows 98. I recommend in this extreme situation that you back up your system and reinstall Windows 98.