Slow and buggy

[liquid_cool]

I just went home to visit my family this week. While my sister was using her pc she kept complaining about how slow it is and how it keeps locking up. I tried running the defrag and scan disk, but they kept closing on their own part way through... I eventually got the defrag to finish after trying it like 10 times. Anyway, it seems to have helped very little, normally I'd be able to fix these problems on my own computer no problem, but I keep on top of maintenance... I don't think my sister has done a virus scan, defrag, disk cleanup, or anything in years... So I have no idea where to start, specially since it keeps booting me out of the defrag and scandisk programs! Normally if my computer was this bad I'd just go and reinstall windows, but unfortunately that's not an option this time. I'm thinking my next step should just be a virus scan to make sure it's not adware or viruses that are slowing it down. Unfortunately she doesn't have a working anti-virus program so I will probably end up downloading that AVG i saw in this forum...

If anyone has any Ideas for what else I could try to get this computer workin a little faster and without the lock ups, let me know... thanks! (nothin that's gonna cost me money though...)

by the way, the specs are: HP pavilion 8665C, running windows 98

[Force Flow]

Start with a spyware scan with adaware and spybot. You may also want to try an online AV scan: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

[liquid_cool]

ok cool, I'll try that

Thanks!

[HeddaLora]

Try using Diskeeper instead of the built-in defragger. The built-in defragger restarts when it encounters open applications -- Diskeeper doesn't have this problem.

[Mesaeus]

Or you can try defragging in Safe Mode (press F8 when booting to get a menu)