Win98 OS....on my laptop...Use Eudora 3.1...It stopped working..open
it up and it just locks up...(don't have the program disks with me
here)  Tried to download Eudora 5.1 but the installation locked
up...so switched to Outlook Express works Ok but the icons are all
blurry/slanty....then my Seiko Label Printer Pro stopped working
(software locks trying to double click from desk top).....then
microsoft freecell stopped working (loads up with no frames and locks
up after about three plays)....Windows Explorer locks up from time to
time...Msgdb?????32 not responding...I don't know if Norton Virus is
working and I did click on a penquin mpeg in an email from a reliable
friend before this started happening...Can you help??

Hi Seedy-ga,

It seems very strange why everything is locking up since you opened
that email. For your interest, even if you're friend is reliable they
can also pick up viruses which will send to everyone on their address
book unless they have the latest up to date protection.

Firstly I would recommend cleaning the laptop of any viruses. 

I assume you are using Norton Anti Virus 2002.

If you can double click on Norton Anti Virus. Check to see what date
the virus definitions are up to. If it hasnt been updated for over 1+
months this could be a reason for being infected with a virus.

This site has instructions to update, detect and remove any viruses
with NAV [ http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/nav/nav_2002_info_solve_virus.html
]

If you could get a hold of McAfee Virus Scan you can scan the whole
laptop in dos mode. You may visit [
http://www.mcafeehelp.com/displaydoc.asp?docid=401&CategoryId=60297 ]
for instructions to Run a scan in DOS.

Here are instructions to manually remove Trojans from your laptop [
http://www.mcafeehelp.com/displaydoc.asp?docid=632&CategoryId=60304 ]

Some viruses can be detected without any Anti Virus applications by
looking into your registry and detecting any suspicious programs
running on the startup. One of the latest viruses Klez puts itself
into your registry but however does need a full dos scan to fully
remove the virus.

You may want to follow [
http://www.mcafeehelp.com/displaydoc.asp?docid=68165&CategoryId=60304
] to see if you do have the Klez virus. Symantec has a removal tool
for Klez at [ http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.removal.tool.html
]

If however you can backup your most important files onto cd then you
can simply complete a system recovery and wipe the whole laptop and
start over again.

Some sites which may be helpful: 

Crashes When Opening, Eudora 4.x or 5.x [
http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/kb/1735hq.html ]

Msgsrv32.exe Stops Responding and Then the Computer Stops Responding
(Q306616) [ http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q306616
]

I will be more then happy to clarify anything if you still need help!
Hope I have helped you. Thankyou for contacting Google Answers.

Search terms used:
msgsrv not responding [
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=msgsrv+not+responding
]
eudora crash [ ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=eudora+crash
]

Good luck!

mistajon-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by seedy-ga on 27 May 2002 11:10 PDT

Again..thanks to all for your suggestions...Having decided to just
backup and wait until I reached my office to implement other
suggestions, I have been going merrily along using Outlook and not
using my label printer.  This morning, I noticed that some previously
blurry icons had suddenly turned clear again and lo and behold all the
previously locked up applications are now working fine....spontaneous
regeneration.....I love the innards and their inner
workings...mysterious!?

---

Clarification of Answer by mistajon-ga on 27 May 2002 15:53 PDT

Good news Seedy-ga! Yes, definately unusual, however if any problems
do arise again you have many options to try out.

Thankyou again for choosing Google Answers. Have a lovely day!

Best wishes,
mistajon-ga

Thank you for suggestions....I've fully backed up...will scan anti
virus...and reload non workng software when I get back to main office
in two weeks....if it lasts that long...Speed of suggestions, feeling
of empathy, and solid suggestions make the five star rating easy to
give...

Sounds like a complete re-install job to be sure - but, I did have
some similar problems when the power saving settings were corrupted
when I installed the software for a HP Scanjet 3200C scanner. HP's
pwrsave.exe caused the computer, mouse, keyboard and/or modem to
freeze intermittantly. A nightmare to trace.
Good luck.

This answer was posted a few days ago in response to another computer
problem, but restoring the register may work in your case as well. 
It's definitely saved my sorry *** on more than a few occasions.  Good
luck.

Subject: Re: Wiped out all start up files in Win ME 
From: webbob-ga on 23 May 2002 14:33 PDT     
Hi grannyvick, 
 
I hope you haven't performed any of the above suggestions yet.  If you
have, ignore this comment.
 
If your computer isn't running, turn it on.  Once you get Windows
running click on "Start" then "Shut Down" and select "Restart in
MS-DOS mode" and click on "OK".  Once your computer restarts, you
should have at a "C:\windows:" prompt on a totally black screen.  If
so, you can skip to step 2 below:
 
Step: 
1. When you're at "C:\>" type the following: "cd windows" and hit
enter
2. When you're at "C:\windows> type the following "cd command" and hit
enter
3. When you're at "C:\windows\command> do the following: 
Make sure there are no disks in the A:\ drive or CDs in the CD drive.
Enter the following command line at the "c:\windows\command>" prompt
and hit enter:
 
scanreg /restore 
 
A "Restore" Window will open: 
Select a previous days date and hit enter to restore system files from
that date.  The previous days date you select should be one that you
ran your computer on before this trouble started.
 
Restart your computer and you should be back to where you before you
wiped out the system files.
 
Hope this solves the problem for you without re-installing windows. 
webbob

Hello there seedy!
Bad news for you I'm afraid. Windows98 itself just goes nuts itself,
and there always is black magic involved to get things to run smooth.
My best suggestion would be to try to do backup of all important data
as soon as possible, because what you describe tells about complete
comuter crash soon. Best thing you can do is to make backup of all
important files, that you have made yourself and then do a complete
system re-install with hard drive formatting. To say honestly -
Windows 98 is worst operating system ever. No other OS (including
other windows) is so much responsible for data loss.
Still if you feel that you cannot do a complete system reinstall(i.e.
you have not all needed CD's) then first thing to run would be
scandisk. You can find it by clicking "My computer" ->right click your
hard drive(usually c:\) ->properties and then on Run scandisk(or
something similar, I have not used Win98 for more than half a year).
On scandisk options choose scan type->through(that means scandisk will
scan both the file structure and disk surface) and UNCHECK the box
with "automatically fix errors"
Why you should do this? Your problem description could be caused
either because files are broken(i.e. computer was not properly shut
down number of times), or it could be because there are bad sectors on
your computers hard disk, and that means quick death to hard disk
soon, because once there are bad sectors on hard disk, you can surely
tell that very soon there will be more.
What else you could try?
Go to control panel-> system -> device manager.
Make sure there are no hardware conflicts.
Go to my computer->right click hard drive->properties->disk
defragmenter.
Could be that your files are extremely fragmented and windows is
taking up all computers resources to find and put files together.
Do you have Norton Utilities 2000 installed by any chance?
NU 2000 have one dll, that is working improperly and is known to cause
problems. If that is the case, you should either update or remove it.
One more thing could be that a memory(RAM) is damaged and that is the
cause. There is no way to simly trace this one, there are some
software available, but it is not free. One I could recommend is
SiSoft Sandra(costs $29)http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/sandra .
Finally if you feel that You cant do it yourself, try to get in touch
with manufacturer of your laptop, they could help you too.
Best bet in situation like this would be go for professional service.
If it is not available, try to do things mentioned above as system
reinstall being the last thing to do.
Hope this helps at least a little.

Hi, Seedy!

Like my colleagues, I'm offering this as a suggestion rather than an
"official answer" because there are just too many possibilities to
know for sure what your problem might be.  However, (aside from the
earlier suggestions, which could work) here are a few things that I've
found useful in similar situations:

1) Beg, borrow, or steal a bootable disk with an up-to-date virus
checker and signatures.  Disks for two different virus checkers would
be even better, because Macafee will catch things Norton doesn't, and
vice versa.

2)Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Info:  Click on
"Tools," and choose "System File Checker."  Follow the prompts, if
anything is amiss you'll be walked through setting the files right. 
Next, go to the same menu and choose "Registry Checker," and again go
through the steps as prompted.  These will find and fix many of the
ills to which Windows is heir.

Good luck, I've done more of this than I care to think and it's never
easy.

The biggest problems I had with my laptop (now consigned to a far
corner of my storage closet...) were simply because I did not practice
good battery maintenance.  You might be able to avoid this kind of
problem in the future if you really do follow the advice that came
with your computer about draining and re-charging the battery
regularly.
Good luck!

All good suggestions.  One more for you: Are you sure it's not
overheating?  Most laptops have a small fan to push warm air out of
the case.  It's usually automatic and very quiet, so if it has stopped
spinning up you might not notice immediately.  If it has, you can
pretty much guarantee that Windows 98 will crash constantly,
especially when you ask it to do something like loading an
application.  If you haven't already rebuilt Windows 98, I suggest you
check the system is being cooled before anything else.

- Izzard

Just a quick comment about McAfee, since several comments suggested
it. I've just had a really bad experience with McAfee--it slowed by
computer w-a-y down and essentially blocked my access to the Internet.
(Using dial-up, I can get to my home page, but other pages won't
load.) Tried to uninstall it, but it doesn't have an uninstall
program. McAfee's Web site suggests Windows add/delete programs, but
that doesn't work. (Leaves chunks of the program behind.) McAfee says
that if it doesn't work, to muck around with registry settings. In
brief, McAfee may add to corruption problems rather than preventing
them.