New and improved general purpose anti-fubar Puter help needed topic

Been slow for quite a while, but I'm finally posting the question.Running a 800 MHz Athlon with Windows 98 second edition. 20 GB hard drive with plenty of free space. Defragging the hard drive did not seem to be of any real help. Have been running earlier versions of Mozilla and/or Firefox since before the major slow down. Now run IE very little.Have been using Norton Antivirus (with updated reference files) since the computer was new. Also use both AdAware SE Personal and Spyware Blaster. In general, I reject most cookie offers. Don't offhand think it is a virus or spyware problem.My computer guru tells me that it is bound to happen over time. The solution is to store away all your data and such somewhere other than the hard drive. Then reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows and all the software.What a pain to do. While it most likely is the best real fix, is there an alternative way to clean out the garbage that's slowing things down?Moose

Not necessarily in this order, I have:Cleaned out the download manager of the older version of Mozilla. The bulk delete would not work (would lock up the program) so I had to delete in smaller chunks.Attempted to do same for Firefox, but had the same lockup problem with the bulk delete. I don't offhand see a way to delete in smaller chunks, or for that matter, even a way to see the download history.I don't at the moment recall what I did with the disc caches. Will have to get back and clear said for Mozella, Firefox, and IE.Updated the reference file for Ad-Aware, and ran it. While it didn't find any problems, in the process Norton Antivirus kicked in a number of times, resulting in a number of quarantined files (since deleted). These virus type things had somehow got past Norton AV the first time. They were (mostly?) things along the lines of BlackBox.class, and other *.class.One thing that Ad-Aware notes, is that the computer had 18 running processes. Will look at these further, but I think they may be proper, albeit still too many.The greater concern was that A-A said there were 302 process modules. I am thinking that these things might be a significant part of the problem. Opinions about process modules???I then ran Norton AV directly, to do a complete scan, and found further virus type things. They are currently in the quarantine area.Then ran Norton AV a second time - This time nothing found.I guess I will be running NAV frequently for a while, to see what happens.Will also pursue various advice from others further.Control-Alt-Delete does bring up the task manager for Windows 98SE for me..Re: The cat - Caught her in mid-yawn to get the avatar photo of the moment. As best I know, she has never pissed on the computer (see signature). No, I am not Bruce Graham.Moose

---

Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham

Connect to internet via a dial up. Because of distance and/or dubious quality phone lines, get 26,400 to 28,400 bps connection.No firewall.Norton Antivirus updates automaticly, although I do a manual check occassionly. I think the reference file(s) are usually within at most a few days of the current date.Re: Windows 98SE. I purchased the computer about 4 years ago from a local shop. It was a package they put together. The specs were good enough for my purposes, at a reasonable price, and I got to support a local business. At the time, they were suspicious of the later version of Windows, and were sticking to the "old reliable 98-SE". They have long since quite putting out their own computers, since they can't compete with Dell etc. I have been doing the Windows 98 updates from Microsoft. It seems you need to have IE for that, if for nothing else.Do use Outlook Express. Probably really should ditch that and go the the Mozilla offering.Moose