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Maybe it just doesn’t like Microsoft – it wouldn’t be alone!

How about removing the soundcard and reseating it? It may have been badly seated to begin with, and have come further loose when adding the USB card. If that fails, try it without the USB card. If that fixes the problem, you could try the USB card (or both) in a different slot.

Sounds like it is using shared system memory, rather than its own. Maybe it didn’t like something about the upgrade. Uninstalling and reinstalling the video drivers might help.

My HP Vectra had serious problems when I put 64Mb and 128Mb in together. Every time I booted up, the memory count got closer and closer to 0 I removed the 64Mb, but found that the 128Mb chipset I had would only work in one slot, not the other . Might be worth mentioning this to your service guys.

Your best bet would be some sort of imaging software, like Drive Image or Norton Ghost. Note that the first release of Drive Image 4 is not compatible with Me (or Win2k). Might seem like a lot to lay out for this one use, but it’s also one of the easiest ways to do regular backups. And of course, yo do back up regularly, don’t you?
Alternatively, mwbackup will do the job, but not as easy. As well as all your personal files, you want to back up the Cookies folder in C:WindowsCookies, if you want sites to remember you. Don’t know where the passwords are stored, though.
Since you are changing hardware, check the Hard Drive settings in Device Manager. As long as your driver is shown as generic IDE, there should be no problem swapping it and then putting your ghosted image onto the new drive; but don’t change any other hardware before booting up on your new hard drive. And of course, make sure that all important personal/business files are safely backed up on removable media!

If the card is dependent on the Pinnacle Software, then if the software is moved, the card drivers might continue to look for it in its original location. Rather than disabling the device, I would suggest removing it in device manager, after uninstalling Adobe and Pinnacle software. Assuming that a restart will be called for and that plug’n’play detects new hardware, cancel the automatic installation. Reinstall Adobe and then install the card through Add New Hardware, or let plug’n’pray do it, if Adobe demands a restart. This all assumes that you are trying to avoid physically removing the card, which is thorough, but time consuming

If your File Allocation Tables are corrupted, I doubt that there is any way to recover the files without having someone try to piece together data like a jigsaw puzzle, assuming that it is possible from a cd. Can’t think of any reason/way for changes to be made to the cd during shutdown or startup. Could the drive be faulty or the cd’s at the end of their usable life (i.e. how many times had they been used when they failed)?

Couldn’t find anything specifically relating to two versions of OE using the same store folder. I already have OE on both O/S’s set up to use storefolders on seperate partitions, as I frequently play around with my system and need to keep all files backed up. Can I just set both versions to use the same folder?

You might try to uninstall OE with Norton and then see if it will reinstall through Windows Setup. Norton should be pretty thorough about uninstalling everything to do with OE, so Setup may see it as more of a blank canvas, where now it sees some vestige that fools it into thinking OE is still there.

Could that fewer problems because you can’t actually work out how to do anything?

Probably CTRL+ALT+DEL. Allows you to see the programs running in memory, but don’t delete them if you don’t know what they are (there is a useful post on this in the Me forum). If you think that you have unnecessary programs draining resources, your best bet is to remove them from the Startup sequence, through msconfig; but again, make sure you you know what you are removing.

Have you recently upgraded to Win 98? If so, try updating the printer drivers as you may have retained older , incompatible drivers.

Wonder how they hope to make it pay? Do they allocate you a toll number? Sell you details on? Or just rely on subscribers to the Plus service?

You might also get what you’re looking for at http://www.windowsupdate.com, if it’s something Bill wants you to have.

I think it will go even further, not that you would want to try (unless you collect shiny coasters)!

Looks like an interesting service. Unfortunately, it’s not free from outside the US! Thanks anyway.

What I really need is something to manage the fax capabilities of my modem and to set up the answerphone settings. The modem can store incoming faxes when the pc is swirtched off, but the bundled software for viewing it is sooo slow. It seems to mostly work with Me, but it’s not compatible with Win2k (I have a dual boot system).

If you’re outside the US/Canada, then you’d be better off buying acomputer magazine and getting it off the cover CD. Since Microsoft won’t deign to have local servers, the download times on those transatlantic phone lines are soooo slow – the last time I tried to download DirectX, I had to turn off power management, or my PC would shut down before it completed (and then it took all night!)