Windows seems to "forget"

[King George John]

Hi:

Twice now I have "fixed" my system by using "system restore" (two different
computers). I don't remember the first incident but the second time was
yesterday.

My wife told me that "Connect To" didn't appear when she clicked start.
She tried various accounts, etc. Somehow the "damage" got transmitted to
an AOL clone service as it no longer has a good "connect" window.

Anyway, I did a restore to the previous point but that didn't change things.
I tried again to the previous day's point. Now things are "normal."

What's going on here?

Just to add to the mystery, I have a W98 machine that has a lot of X-10
stuff and it "forgot" the captions on the "remote" control. No restore on
W98 so I just let it go and try to remember what button does what.

As I said, things are working now but I would like some insight into WTF is
happening and whether there is something I can change to keep it from
happening again.

Thanks,

jlg

---
From "A Nation Deceived" (www.nationdeceived.org): "Acceleration is a gift
of time. For the child, skipping one year means one-twelfth of his or her
time in school has not been wasted. If a child skips two years,that's a full
one-sixth of his or her educational career that is spent learning rather
than marking time."

 

[Guest]

This is the Windows XP Forum. Try posting in the Windows 98 Forum.

 

[King George John]

This is the Windows XP Forum. Try posting in the Windows 98 Forum.

Let me try again, sport.

The machines that had System Restore were XP machines. (Like, I have two
XP machines and one W98 machine.)

OK?

 

[Malke]

Let me try again, sport.

The machines that had System Restore were XP machines. (Like, I have
two XP machines and one W98 machine.)

OK?

There isn't really any way for us to tell what happened from the
information you provided in your first post, Your Highness. ;-) As
always, the first step in troubleshooting should be to ensure that the
machine is completely virus and malware-free:

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

If the machine is clean, then I'd run RAM and hard drive tests:

1) Test the RAM - I like Memtest86+ from www.memtest.org. Obviously, you
have to get the program from a working machine. You will either
download the precompiled Windows binary to make a bootable floppy or
the .iso to make a bootable cd. If you want to use the latter, you'll
need to have third-party burning software on the machine where you
download the file - XP's built-in burning capability won't do the job.
In either case, boot with the media you made. The test will run
immediately. Let the test run for an extended period of time - unless
errors are seen immediately. If you get any errors, replace the RAM.

2) Test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility from the mftr. Usually
you will download the file and make a bootable floppy or cd with it.
Boot with the media and do a thorough test. If the drive has physical
errors, replace it.

Once you've done this troubleshooting, if you are still having issues
then post back with the results of the malware and hardware tests. Then
we can go to more focused troubleshooting.

Malke