Bugs in Windows 98 SE upgrade

Helpline Q&A Directory

I recently decided to install the Windows 98 SE upgrade to try to stop the frequent crashes I was experiencing with Windows 98. However, after the upgrade, I find that when I shut down the system restarts itself.

In order to shut the machine down completely I have to restart in DOS and then switch off. I have tried to reinstall the upgrade but there's absolutely no improvement. I hope you can help solve this problem or it will be back to crash-happy Windows 98.

This appears to be a well-known problem with Windows 98 SE, although it was probably triggered by something in the Windows 98 system that you upgraded. A clean install (after formatting the hard disk) would probably solve it. However, if you don't want to do that there are a couple of other things you could try.

Firstly, you could disable fast shutdown. You do this by clicking Start, Run. Type Msconfig, then hit Enter. Click Advanced on the General tab of the System Configuration Utility. Finally, on the Advanced Troubleshooting Settings dialog box, you need to check the box captioned 'Disable fast shutdown'.

The other possibility is to install Microsoft's attempted fix for the problem - the Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Supplement. You can obtain this using Windows Update, or alternatively visit www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/corporate.asp.