[diana w]

Hey,

My Dell (with Windows Me) computer keeps freezing every time i try to open a Word file. And if i press ctrl+alt+del a message comes up saying i dont have enough resources to run the program, so i tell it to close word and it does, but now everything is frozen. and if i press ctrl+alt+del again it just brings up everything thats open and says i dont have enough memory to run it now. there's also been a slew of little problems along the way, but i just dont know what to do with it anymore. i have AVG virus protection, the latest version of Ad-aware, and Spybot, and they never catch anything although i'm more sure its some kind of malware or spyware problem. this has happened before and i just ended up reformatting the computer (im not a pro it took 7 phone calls to Dell Support to do it haha). however i'm trying to find a different way of fixing the problem because i really don't look forward to reformatting AGAIN. thanks in advance.

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If you do a ctrl-alt-delete, count how many programs are running there. More than 15 or so is too many programs running in the background. Do google searches for the ones you can't figure what the program is that is running. Try stopping some of them and see if the puter runs better. Do not stop systray or Explorer. When you reboot the computer they all will be back running again. If possible uninstall some of the programs if you seldom use them and they are running in the background. Adding some more memory will help this also. I like running 512 MB of memory in my Win ME puter. You really don't say what your hardware is in the puter. It may be old enough that it is time to buy a newer one. I think staples has Compaq puters on sale for $229 right now. You will spend close to half that on 512 memory sticks if they are the PC133 memory.

SRX660

[SRX660]

If you do a ctrl-alt-delete, count how many programs are running there. More than 15 or so is too many programs running in the background. Do google searches for the ones you can't figure what the program is that is running. Try stopping some of them and see if the puter runs better. Do not stop systray or Explorer. When you reboot the computer they all will be back running again. If possible uninstall some of the programs if you seldom use them and they are running in the background. Adding some more memory will help this also. I like running 512 MB of memory in my Win ME puter. You really don't say what your hardware is in the puter. It may be old enough that it is time to buy a newer one. I think staples has Compaq puters on sale for $229 right now. You will spend close to half that on 512 memory sticks if they are the PC133 memory.

SRX660

[Not Sid]

Not to sound rude or blunt or anything, but the ultimate solution to almost ANY problem with Windows Millenium Edition is to do as in the following list below:
Step one: Throw your Windows ME Disk away.
Step two: Go to a store and buy XP, and if you can't afford that, look on eBay for a different version.
-or-
Alternative to step two: Switch to Linux
Step three: Do a victory dance for you have conquered Windows ME
Step three if you did the alternate step two: Do a victory dance to celebrate that you no longer use Windows at all and have conquered Microsoft.