Here's the problem:

After the recent threads about virii here, I got jittery and dld AVG free version virus checker. All was well for a couple of days, then I started getting General Protection Faults and Fatal Exception Errors (Running Win98). It just got worse and worse. Sometimes I boot up and it's all fine, other times Windoze won't even start up without giving me a GPF and rebooting itself. MSN Messenger is the worst offender causing a GPF 5 tries out of 6. MS Outlook Express does similar, AIM, Dungeon Siege, IE - everything I open causes a GPF. It was driving me up the wall and I spend about 40 minutes at the start of each session rebooting to try and get everything working.

The only change to my system was AVG. I couldn't find the uninstaller, so I uninstalled it using the 'Add/Remove Programs' function in Control Panel. Then things got worse. I rebooted several times to be faced with a Fatal Exception Error when Windoze launched. After several reboots, I finally got it to boot up successfully by booting to safe mode and disabling everything in my start up folder, but got lots of error messages during system check about AVG related files in the Registry which couldn't be found.

I now get more GPFs and Fatal Exceptions than I did before. I am seriously considering just backing up my DS saved games and a few documents and doing yet another HDD reformat and Windoze reinstall - but I can't find most of my driver CDs which is a real bummer.

Any ideas? Or the PC gets it.

Perhaps you should try cleaning your registry? My PC ran a lot smoother after I did that....

*hands her a computer sized casket*
Sorry Epona, can't help ya, I've been running AVG for ages with no probs.

Just a thought - have you tried running the System File Checker? Or even reinstalling Windoze over the current installation?

Try backing up all your improtant stuff and re-installing windows

*Sobs quietly and throws a handful of dirt into grave*

I'll try that tonight Mouse. I have to say that reinstalling Windoze over the current one has always caused more registry problems than it solved when I've done it in the past. I'm getting to be an old hand at the reformat/reinstall game now, I just wish I could find all my driver disks because that would be the easiest option - clean slate so to speak. Problem is I'm semi-packed ready to move and don't know where I put them.

epona, you can do what mouse says, but i would get rid of 98, if i was you and if it's possible i would install xp, or at least me2000, but i wouldn't go back to 98

98 is the most stable version of Windows. Not ME, ME = Bad. XP, possibly. But 98 is quite stable and compatible with almost all things, it runs very well for me.

Personally speaking, 98SE works fine for me. Just one thing, when I reinstall after a complete format, I always use the OEMSETUP rather than SETUP. Not entirely sure what the difference is, but I've never had any problems ;)