Best way to find a buggy driver in Win98SE?

ID:21905
 
Oct 31 2006, 11:46 pm
Here's the deal - my PC, running Windows 98SE, crashes whenever I try to shut it down. It fails in several ways:

1 - It goes to a black screen, and stays there.
2 - It reboots.
3 - It stays on the "Windows is shutting down" screen forever
4 - It pops up a "Windows has crashed, you'll have to restart it" error message. The error message is displayed when it's gone all MS-DOSy.

I recently discovered that if I boot in safe mode, the error does not occur.

I have scanned for viruses and spyware recently. I use Firefox, and I don't go downloading stuff willy-nilly, so I wouldn't expect that I'd get one, anyway.

So, my conclusion from this is that some driver is refusing to unload properly, and it's screwing everything up. Any suggestions on how I can figure out what it is? My Windows-fu is weak (And with good reason. I'd inhabit my linux partition permanently, but getting WINE to work with everything is such a pain. <_<)
Nov 1 2006, 12:20 am
This is basically exactly the problem I have with our old PC - it boots up fine (if slowly) but if you do anything then it refuses to shut down.
Nov 1 2006, 12:35 am
Well, taking a guess here. Could it be that the computer is eight years old? I mean I had a '95 that blew up in '01 so it can be that it's old.
Nov 1 2006, 1:12 am
Isn't there some sort of interactive boot option where you can choose which drivers to load?

Here we go, I thought so. This article isn't directly relevant, but it lists some procedures that might be useful: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188867

Try restarting the computer, holding down Ctrl while Windows 98 boots, and choose "Step-By-Step Confirmation". Then you can choose what to load, which hopefully will help you narrow down your problem.

Or you could just reinstall Windows. Fixes (almost) everything. ;-)
Nov 1 2006, 2:58 am
My suggestion: Upgrade your computer. Driver problems prevent me from installing XP and cause the exact same problems, and they don't make new drivers for almost all of the software installed (mine is an HP). That's what I'm going to do. (I use '98 SE as well)
Nov 1 2006, 3:24 am
it crashes when doing SHUT DOWN LOL.

Error in shutdown.exe windows must now restart.

Error in restart.exe windows must now shutdown.

Error, illegal operation in shutdown32.dll please restart your pc.

LOL
Nov 1 2006, 4:11 am
I can tell you how to find a buggy driver in Amish country, but I can't help with Win98SE.
Nov 1 2006, 5:55 am
I had the same problem with my Win98SE and I stumbled on the unofficial edition of windows 98. I installed it and it fixed, I'm not saying it'll work for you as well, I'm just saying that's what I did.
Nov 1 2006, 8:46 am
Also i had 98 myself The you have performed an illegal operation ever five minutes software.
Nov 1 2006, 12:40 pm
Gughunter wrote:
I can tell you how to find a buggy driver in Amish country, but I can't help with Win98SE.

Hahaha, nice one.
Nov 17 2006, 9:04 am
Simple, BUY WINDOWS XP :p