First off, I should say that I don't want to make it sound like Zach and I are computer illiterate...we built this computer ourselves. However, we are having the following problems and no matter what we try we can't seem to fix them!



1. At least once every fifteen minutes, Explorer kicks us off. Something will pop up that says; "Internet explorer has performed an illegal operation and needs to shut down" then when you click on details it always says something about MSHMTL.DLL or something else.dll.



2. At least once a week we have to reinstall the printer, because for no apparent reason it uninstalls itself! I'm serious...it can literally be we go to bed with a printer installed and wake up the next day and it's not there!



3. The computer freezes...A LOT.



4. Whenever I go to type something, if I want to double space I have to do it manually. Also, if I need some parts to be double spaced and some single I can't do that. It has to be one or the other.



5. Whenever I go to print something, a few sentences always format like this (just an example)...



Anne Frank was born in 1929 in Frankfurt Germany to Otto and Edith

Frank



Hollander. She came to Amsterdam at the age of 4.



See how the formatting is weird? And the biggest problem is some of my professors are docking me points for that! When I tell them it's something I have no control over they tell me to just keep printing it until it comes out "correct" or accept the negative points. It's not fair!

Info, info, info.



What OS? When was the last time it was reformatted, what software are you using for word proccessing, etc.

1. Windows 98.

2. We formatted it just this past Saturday. We have to format every week!

3. WordPad

Have you run Windows Update, and updated drivers from the manufacturer?

I wanted to try that but Zach says that won't work because the hard drive can't "take it", but I think he's wrong and he's in Tampa right now so will you explain to me how to do that?

Our internet also pulls the ''Illegal Operation'' stuff every 10-20 minutes. It drives me crazy! Come to think of it, my dad built this computer.

You should upgrade to XP when it's feasible. It's much more stable. I get no more of the "blue screen of death" that I got with Win98. I was told that the longer you have Win98, the more errors you will encounter, like a snowball effect. Of course, if you're reformatting that often...I don't know. My IE used to do that too, and would annoyingly close all the windows I had open.

format the hard drive, get linux, install.



viola.

my own input: I hate windows XP. I'm pretty sure it's designed to make things run snail-speed. If you have a computer that's fast and new, it's fine, but we've had more problems since installing XP than ever before. It's also so unbearable slow that we don't play any but the simplest games. Anything with graphics or animation makes the stupid thing have tantrums.



Maybe our computer is just obsolete, though.



As for helping, get a different browser. Explorer did the same thing to us, so we just don't use it anymore. netscape or mozilla firefox work better, and no popups!



the rest... I can't help you. You're obviously more computer literate than me. I leave the room if my dad decides to open the computer. I don't want to emit any bogons at it. good luck, though! I think it's really cool that you built a computer, and I hope you can get it to work better!

I may be stating the obvious, but:



Do you have anti-virus software? If so, is it up to date? Have you run a scan lately? Have you installed any new software recently?

AoD, my PC is 6 years old. No slowness that can't be accounted for by the old processor. And DSL helps.

maybe you're just more patient than I am... I often find myself sitting there banging the mouse on the mousepad going "come ON! stupid piece of crap computer!"



but it's definitely much slower than windows 98 was. Even impatient me could handle that. Maybe our computer really is just dumb. *grumbles at the stupid obsolete hunk of junk*

Some of the Internet Explorer errors could be a virus... or a program that's "hooked into" it and causing it to crash...



It definately needs to be updated.... there's tons of updates for Win98, especially if it's re-installed. As far as space... if you don't have enough space for the updates, you really don't have enough space for the operating system! There should be at a min 10% of the hard drive free, 20% for normal usage. Many/all updates install themselves over prior files, so you don't really increase file space that much (ie, download a update that's 1mb, the file on the computer's 1mb, you don't lose space for the update in escense).

Well, this sounds a little contradictory. There are two different programs that you might be talking about. One is Windows Explorer, or just plain Explorer, which is the Win9x version of the utility that used to be called File manager in Win 3.x. This runs in the background whenever you run Windows.

Then there is the browser program called Internet Explorer. This is not the same as Windows Explorer. So, which one is generating the error messages? Windows Explorer (File manager)? Or Internet Explorer?






What type of printer do you have? How old is it? Do you use the printer's software to install it? Or the drivers that came with Win98?








That's one of the reasons I stick with Wordperfect, which has "Reveal Codes," which lets you see what formatting codes are screwing up your text.

You format your computer every week?!



Your word editing problems are unrelated to your other problems. Wordpad doesn't have a feature to double space documents. The reason you're getting hanging lines when you print is because you're manually hitting enter at the end of a line to go to the next line, which you shouldn't do. Use a better word processor program and you'll be able to double space properly and won't have to worry about those editing problems.



As for the crashing and errors. It's important that you run Windows Update, scan for viruses, and scan for malware. To start, go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and follow all the prompts to download all critical updates. Install them, reboot, go back to Windows Update again, repeating the process until all updates are done.

Is there a word processing program that I can put on here without having to have a disc for it? Whatever it is has to be able to make documents RTF because that's what my professors insist on.

Internet Explorer is generating the errors.



I'm not sure how old this printer is. It's an OfficeJet 600. I use the printer's software to install it.



Can Wordperfect be put on here without the disc for it?

I dunno guys, if a PC and its crashing like this, the first thing id check is memory or processor.



If you have more then one memory chip try taking one out (while the computer is off of course) and just running it with one and see waht happens. If it works fine throw the other one back in and take the first one out and see what happens.

win98

You might want to copy down the exact error and look for it at the link above.

Windows 98 is the biggest piece of garbage ever. Get XP.

I think AbiWord can do RTF. Not sure about the double-spacing, though.



There are three freeware word processors listed here:



http://www.pricelessware.org/2004/PL...:WordProcessor



The second two can do RTF, definitely.

Sorry to hear about IE, but that's kind of good news. Just get and use another browser, like Mozilla or whatever. Don't use IE.






No, I don't think so. What's the problem with the disc? You just don't want to buy it? (I think the whole Corel Word Perfect Office Suite is selling on the internet somewhere for $19.99. Cheap!) Or your CD drive not working?