Windows 98SE Slow Start

[Thrillparks]

I just did a fresh install of 98SE on my computer and every time I start it up it stays the the blue windows screen for 2-3 mins and then finally goes to the desktop. Also, when I shut it down it doesn't show the windows shutdown screen. It just goes from the desktop to off. Has anyone had any problems like this before? Please help, because waiting on this thing to boot up gets annoying.

[Dark Nova]

dude get use to it. this is completly normal. if your a xp user, and you go back to 98 dosent matter how much ram you have or how good is you pc, you will see lots of changes. It will take some time to log in windows.

and for the shutdown its also normal.

[Gizmo]

You can tweak the boot.ini file that the bootloader follows in the OS loading process, I'm not sure which line it is, but you can change how long the bootloader screen stays up for.

[Panama Red]

The slow boot problems were mostly solved thru various updates from MS. Have you been to Window Update and downloaded all the updates?

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by Dark Nova dude get use to it. this is completly normal. if your a xp user, and you go back to 98 dosent matter how much ram you have or how good is you pc, you will see lots of changes. It will take some time to log in windows. and for the shutdown its also normal.

No, what Thrillparks's is seeing is not normal. I'm still running Win98SE on a PIII 600MHz system with 256MB of RAM and it boots to the Windows desktop in about a minute and a half...that includes a boot sector scan with the anti-virus software and loading a bunch of background programs.

And I always see the Windows shutdown screen when I'm shutting the system down...unless there's a problem.

Thrillparks: I'd do as Panama Red suggests and see if that helps.

And do you have a network card installed that isn't hooked up to a network? That will really slowdown the boot process as the NIC searches for a network.

Cricket

[Thrillparks]

Yes I do have an Nic card that is not hooked to a network. I will try disabling it. I haven't downloaded any of the Ms updates either. Will try those and let you know what happens. Thanks for the help.

[Dark Nova]

Originally Posted by Cricket No, what Thrillparks's is seeing is not normal. I'm still running Win98SE on a PIII 600MHz system with 256MB of RAM and it boots to the Windows desktop in about a minute and a half...that includes a boot sector scan with the anti-virus software and loading a bunch of background programs. And I always see the Windows shutdown screen when I'm shutting the system down...unless there's a problem.

really, ive worked with some 98 all summer, ive seen them all. some were slow, some were ok, but i havent seen one go fast. But 5 minutes is kind of a lot. i also dont recall seing the shut down screen a lot, thought ive seen it about 1/3 of all shut down.

And 256MB of ram is really good for an 98, i use to run 256MB of ram on my XP.

[glc]

Disabling your NIC or assigning it a static IP will cut 90 seconds off your bootup time.

[Thrillparks]

Yep you nailed it cricket. It was the Nic. My boot time is down to around 30 seconds. Thank you very much.

[Cricket]

30 seconds? That's pretty fast for Win98SE. What are you system specs? When I had Win98SE on my PIII 1GHz system it would boot in about 45 seconds.

Cricket