[InsolentMuse]

I feel silly, as I used to be able to troubleshoot Win98 on my own, but I've been using XP so long, that it's gone right out the window.

I am on my work computer, and this is driving me insane, as I can barely read my screen, and as it's a holiday we are tech-support free!

I'm on a rather old computer that would most likely conk completely if we installed XP. Last week our tech guy completely wiped my computer and reinstalled everything and since then, I have had nothing but problems.

Most of those are fixed - when I left work on Friday, all was well. However, when I came in this morning and turned her on, it booted in Safe Mode. Fine, whatever, Sometimes the boss uses my workstation and turns it off without shutting down (eek).

Only now... it's starting normally, but I'm stuck in 16 colors and a resolution that completely warps my screen and I can't really do much. I've been fighting with it for an hour. Nothing that I can remember to do is working.

I'm not sure where to begin giving you information, but I am more than happy to walk through the tech-support newbie directions, because I'm probably missing something.

Help ?

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[InsolentMuse]

For ugly reference:

Attached Files

•  IE.bmp   225.05KB   451 downloads

[StarHawk]

Hi InsolentMuse and welcome to geeks to go

First let's try something simple

• Restart Windows 98.
• While the system is restarting, press and hold the left CTRL key until you see the Windows 98 Startup menu. (Try F8 if CTRL doesn't work.)
• In the Windows 98 Startup menu, select Command Prompt Only.
• From the MS-DOS command prompt, type ScanReg /Restore.
• A screen appears listing the available backup sets. Select the a backup from when the display worked right.

Let me know if this works.

[InsolentMuse]

See, newbie solution.

But... oh how my eyes thank you.

Now, one question. Any clue how to prevent that, or what could have caused it (being unable to give you much info), short of yelling at the bossman?

Either way, holy jeez, thank you.

[StarHawk]

For some reason safe mode does that sometimes with win 98 especially if safe mode was accessed using Msconfig. Microsoft has some stuff on it, but nothing easy helps as far as I know.

one thing that helps sometimes is to set the Display properties of the Default desktop to a higher resolution. Instead of logging on under your windows name, hit ESC at password screen. If this is not disabled you will boot into win 98's default desktop. Change the display prop there and reboot. this will change the registry settings for the default desktop. But will not help if safe mode is accessed from MsConfig instead of F8, CTRL. This tip is totally from my own experiences not something I've read but ya can try it.

[InsolentMuse]

Thanks.

Now I remember why I switched to XP, though. Hopefully budget will allow them to ditch this dell and get me a real box.

[StarHawk]

Glad I could help.

Remember scanreg. Sometimes you have to use scanreg /fix instead of scanreg /restore. i always try the restore option first. Can't find the microsoft article I was hunting for but found a related issue, Desktop Icons May Be Rearranged After You Boot into Safe Mode. For windows problems I usually search Microsoft 's Knowledge Base if I haven't saw the problem before or simply forgot the solution.

Sorry but I prefer 98 to Xp by far. Still living in the past I guess.