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. (more…)

When attempting to install a digital camera I can install the software and connect the camera to the USB port, but when attempting to install the hardware through the ‘Add/Remove Hardware’ control panel, a message appears saying ‘Updating hardware database’. No matter how long I leave this window the progress bar does not move past 0% and I must press CTRL-ALT-DEL to return to the desktop. If I attempt to manually select the hardware to install (rather than have Windows automatically detect the hardware) the same message appears and goes nowhere. The computer is running Windows Me. (more…)

Computer magazines offer advice on setting up dual booting systems, but very little about undoing the setup. My 120GB hard drive is partitioned (using Partition Magic) as follows: C: Windows 98 SE, D: Data, E: Temp, and F: Windows XP. All drives are FAT32 except drive F which is NTFS. Reading articles on the internet there appears to be conflicting information about how to remove the dual boot without upsetting the MBR and making the HDD unusable. Could you please outline a set of steps to remove the dual boot setup leaving Windows 98 SE intact on the C drive, with the other partitions empty? Also, can Windows 98 SE be reinstalled over the top of the existing installation, as there is a corrupted file in my Windows 98 SE installation which won’t allow installation of the correct driver for the PCI bus? (more…)

When the computer is switched-on it goes through the usual Windows boot routine, briefly shows the desktop and then automatically loads Outlook Express. How can I prevent Outlook Express from loading on startup? The computer is running Windows Me. (more…)

Occasionally the computer will stall on shut down. Sometimes it will take a few seconds and shutdown and other times it will stop at the blue Windows 98 logo screen and not go any further. The only way to successfully shutdown the machine is to press the reset button and go through the shutdown process again. The computer is a Celeron 1.8 GHz with 256 RAM running Windows 98 SE. (more…)