A few months ago I scanned an A4 flyer and then emailed the file to a friend. This all worked fine, but the flyer always appears whenever the computer starts. When the computer boots it runs through a few diagnostics and then the flyer appears on the screen and stays there until the desktop appears. How can I get rid of the flyer? The computer is running Windows 98.

From your description, it sounds like the flyer has become the Windows startup splash screen. By default, the Windows splash screen should be the large Windows 98 screen with the clouds background and the Windows 98 logo. In Windows 98, it is possible to change the splash screen to a custom screen you have designed. Custom Windows splash screens are stored in the LOGO.SYS file located in the root directory of your hard drive (e.g. C:). Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Programs’ and open ‘Windows Explorer’. Click the ‘View’ menu > ‘Folder Options’. In the window that appears, click the ‘View’ tab. Look for the section named ‘Hidden files’ and select ‘Show all files’. Click OK. Navigate to the root of your hard drive, and locate the LOGO.SYS file. Delete this file (since Windows will not be able to find the LOGO.SYS file, it will now default to using the original Windows 98 splash screen which is contained within another system file).

In the event the flyer is not being displayed in place of your Windows splash screen, but is instead being displayed after the splash screen, the cause of the problem may be the default Windows 98 background wallpaper. Since Windows 98 somewhat supports multiple users, this can allow users to have a different background wallpaper. Of particular interest to us, is the wallpaper that is displayed at the Windows logon prompt. Once logged into your user account, that user’s wallpaper is displayed. However, when Windows initially loads and displays the logon prompt, the default user wallpaper is displayed. To change this wallpaper, logon to Windows under the default user (usually by pressing the ‘Cancel’ button at the logon prompt) then change the wallpaper. This will change the wallpaper for the default user, which is the wallpaper displayed at the logon prompt.