ZortMcGort11

Other suggestions: -If you have any .WAV (sound) files on your computer, convert them to MP3, then delete the original WAV -same as above, if you have any MPG files, convert them to MP4 (Eusing website that I mentioned above, has a video converter that works on win9x)

One program to try is the Eusing Cleaner. https://www.eusing.com/free_system_cleaner/system_cleaner.htm If you're not experienced I don't actually recommend it. But.... it could be a really simple way to "Clean" junk temp files off your computer. If you do decide to try it. Don't run the registry cleaner... leave that box unchecked. If I were you the only boxes I would check to clean would be: Windows -> "Temporary Files" + "memory dumps" Internet Explorer -> "temporary internet files" Those are the only 3 things I'd recommend checking, make sure everything else empty.

Just more questions... you said you looked around for a big file that may be causing problems.... can I ask you? Was this computer ever hooked up to the internet? If so, it may not be one huge file, it may be millions of little ones in a temp folder, either used by Windows itself or Internet Explorer. Any time in the past 25 years you ever delete the cache? If not, you may have a huge cache of "Temporary Internet Files" stored by Internet Explorer. That thing was notorious for just accumulating endless amount of picture files off the net. I don't think they ever set a limit to that thing, by default I think it was set to just run wild and store every single picture ever viewed! Try going into Internet Explorer web browser looking at the menu.... click on "Tools," then "Internet Options," then under "temporary internet files" click on "delete Files." Then check and see how much free space is available on your drive.

You don't need an anti virus for Win95. It will just eat up the memory and slow the computer down, and use up what little space is left over. Absolutely NO anti-virus program for Win95 will offer protection from viruses that are "in the wild," so to speak. Zero day threats -- viruses that are brand new and don't have anti-virus signatures, meaning they can't be detected yet -- will infect your computer just the same as a Windows 10 computer. Therefore, if you can't have a functioning up-to-date virus scanner, then there is zero point in having one. You either have to have one that is receiving constant updates to be relevant, or it's useless. -------------------------

Go to "my computer" or else "windows explorer" and look at the root of drive C:\ Look at the list of folders.... should look something like "My Documents".... "Program Files"..... "Windows"..... etc etc and whatever other folders you made. The point is, you want to be at the "top" of the hard drive. At the very top of the window it should say, "C:\" Using your mouse, right click on each folder and select "properties" from the list. It should tell you how much Megabytes of data is in the selected folder. Go through and view the properties of each folder and write down how many megabytes are in each folder. This way, you can tell where the majority of space is being used.

To further elaborate on System Restore. It's my understanding that it's purpose was to simply update "check points" and maintain a backup of your system. So the longer you use the hard drive, the longer you have these "check points" being updated in the background. And eventually the size of this portion of you hard drive would continually grow. If you set your windows explorer to view "hidden and system" files -- not turned on by default -- you can see the "Restore" folder in the root of the C drive. Even after you turn off system restore it's still there, it can't be removed, but it's much less intrusive if you turn it off. WAY LESS. I still believe, after using Windows Me for about 17 - 18 years, that it is much sturdier operating system than it get credit for. I chalk that up to the "system file protection" feature. That's a feature win98 lacks, and I suspect it's the reason I've had only a handful of Blue Screens of Death in the last 17-18 years. Probably less than 5 in that whole time. Very rare. On the other hand, when I used Windows 98 I started getting them everyday. Once the files get corrupted and screwed up on Win98, you have to start with a fresh install. Windows ME, using system file protection, I believe that's the reason it's more stable. It can take a lot more abuse. Maybe I'm wrong... i don't know.... got my info off wikipedia page. Maybe XpClient can shed more light on the system file protection feature of WinME. I'd definitely be interested in more info that anybody might have. Thanks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Me

Hi thanks for the list! My windows CD is bootable (i burned many copies), thank goodness, because my floppy disk drive broke along time age. I've had to boot using my CD a few times now. I didn't know the difference between the two versions, OEM and retail, thanks for explaining. I got one of those original Windows ME keyboards from 20 years ago that has the "hibernate" button on the keyboard. If I touch that it goes into hibernation! And It's annoying as hell! I always disable it when I do a fresh install. Next time I backup my files and plan on reinstalling windows, I'm going to try out those patches, couldn't hurt. I wouldn't mind seeing if that expanded memory trick works. There are a few DOS programs, for example PictView for DOS, that due to memory issues, can only use like 1 MB of ram and therefore can't load normal sized pictures. That's one reason, and one only, that I think win98 was better than ME. I could still use PictView in Windows 98 and have a really super fast image converter with a quick file menu. DOS sometimes could be so much quicker than windows mouse clicking through folders! www.pictview.com @ b0070 Turning off System Restore after a fresh installation virtually eliminates any stability problems I've had. When I first started using Windows ME like 17 years ago, yes, there were stability issues. Like every time you shut the computer down it would hang and freeze, then you'd have to physically unplug it. But turning off system restore fixed that. Go to: Control panel -> system -> performance tab -> file system -> troubleshooting -> disable system restore check box. It's that simple! Have a good one.

I totally agree with you, Siria. It's pretty impressive what people have been able to do with Win9x in terms of updates, patches, and browser upgrades. And If just a handful of people are capable of extending the life of Win9x... just imagine what could have been possible with more resources and support from a company or institution. It's possible to get more life out of these old operating systems... which were killed back in 2006, yet here we are 14 years later, and despite how they said "you can't use them anymore" we still are. Of course, the reason why they said we can't use them anymore, is because we're all supposed to buy a new one every 4 or 5 years! We're supposed to pay Microsoft for the same word processor that reached it's peak back in the 90s! Not only that, but instead of getting a physical copy on a floppy disk or CD, now you just pay for the "service." So you don't actually own anything, you're just renting it. And therefore, you're computer becomes hostage to the license terms of their software.... therefore, you don't own your computer anymore either! What good is YOUR computer, if ALL the software on it can be removed, changed or altered at the whims of Microsoft, Apple, Google or whatever. Thanks for the info! Thanks Rainyshadow too. I'm gonna download and try some of those things. I just still have a lot to do with all the stuff Siria posted, so I'll get around to it eventually :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mskHNJtfBQ Ozzy - "Diary of a Madman"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed0BMSfEwuI Solange - "Lovers in the parking lot"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy9W_mrY_Vk Solange - "Losing You"

Sorry to hear that such a great contributor to the Windows 9x community has passed away... RIP.

@Wunderbar98 I didn't know about the "updated" versions of these browsers that support TLS 1.2. I used the "original" versions of them for several years (K-Meleon 1.5.4 in particular).... and that's what I thought you meant. Wasn't aware that somebody had actually updated them. I stopped visiting this place a few years back because MSFN wouldn't load on my computer.... and so I just stopped visiting and didn't keep up to speed on the current developments. MSFN seems to work again, though, for some odd reason. Wow, this is like getting a second wind for my computer.

Thank you Siria for all the work you put into your replies! You're a gentleman and a scholar! I should thank Roytam as well! Well, thanks everybody for helping me out here! I unzipped the package "ns9-nss-update.7z" into my "C:\Program Files\Netscape\Navigator 9\" folder and copied over the DLL files that were older. And that was it, It worked! I'm now able to read Wikipedia again! Some of the larger wikipedia articles make my computer "freeze," and prevent me from scrolling the page, so I assume they're too big, memory wise, for my computer to handle. (My system specs, by the way, are: Pentium III, 866 MHz CPU, 384 MB Ram, 32 Gig Hard drive) --- Ancient Crap, I know! So far I've been able to read a few medium sized, and smaller wikipedia pages, which is awesome! Tomorrow if I have more time, I'll try downloading the Firefox3.6+TLS1.2 ciphers package. Well, this is great, thanks everyone!

what do these things do?

Thanks for the MSN link :-) I used Opera exclusively for about 7 or 8 years... from 2010 until 2017? Then it just went to total crap. Endless popup windows and certificate errors that don't go away even after I click the okay button. It's unusable.... worse than Firefox 2. In my experience, yes, K-Meleon 1.7.0 loads way better than Opera, or anything else I've tried. Then again, maybe I haven't tried enough. I set the user agent to Firefox 3.6 by the way. Google results work better that way then the default K-Meleon user agent string. I gave Retrozilla a shot. While I found it DID render some pages better than SeaMonkey 1.1.19 and Firefox 2.0.0.20 (other browsers from the same exact Gecko branch/engine), I would often experience random crashes. So unfortunately had to stop using it. Otherwise I would consider Retrozilla the last, good, non-kernelex browser for Win9x. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort put into these things :-) Tried Firefox 4.0, but it was terrible. Are there any Windows9x browsers that load Wikipedia anymore? Are you guys still able to load wikipedia. I'm using vanilla KernelEx, last version posted on Xeno's old website.... 4.5.2. Is there a simple download package that update from that? Thanks for the replies.

Thanks Wunderbar! I think you are grandfathered into Gmail, because I used to be able to log in using Netscape 9, Firefox 2 or K-Meleon, but then I made a new account due to spam emails, and then I couldn't get back to the "HTML Only Version" with my new account. That could be cause I made the new account with a new computer. I'm going to try and make a NEW account with plain old K-Meleon 1.5.4, just to see if it will work, but I doubt it will :-) Another website that still works is SciTech Daily. They have some pretty cool news sections on Space, Technology, Health, Earth, etc. It still works good with Netscape 9, but it does look better if you use either Firefox 3+ or K-Meleon 1.6+ https://scitechdaily.com/news/space/ Oh and, If you can stomach the right-wing bias, Breitbart website works pretty good. On dial-up, it's one of a handful of websites that loads properly with pictures besides, say, Drudge, CNN Text, or Netscape News. https://www.breitbart.com/ The problem with Drudge is that all those aggregate websites just link to other sites, and about 90% of it doesn't work. I just noticed more websites going all "secure" and blocking out old browsers... each day there seems to be fewer and fewer sources of entertainment :-)

Another thing, if I come across a news article or website that won't load, I can usually use "CachedPages.com" to view it in text mode. Whether it's to read Wikipedia, news article, or whatever it usually works. http://www.cachedpages.com/

Hi Wunderbar98, I'm using K-Meleon as well, version 1.7 and no javascript as well. Sometimes I'll use Firefox 3.6.28, but K-Meleon allows more tweaking and adjustments to the user interface, and the bookmarking works better. So I'm pretty happy with it. Opera 12 is useless now, it breaks down on almost every site I try, with all the certificate error messages and everything. I was using the Library computers for doing most browsing, but due to Covid-19 shutdown, the only internet access I have is my old trusty Windows ME computer on dialup for last six months. It's better than nothing. There are some news websites that actually work, even with a slow connection. There's the text-only edition of CNN: https://lite.cnn.com/en And netscape news: https://isp.netscape.com/news/ I browse forums a lot as well. Can't check my Gmail though, Google says my browser is too old. I don't suppose anybody knows an email service that still works? Anyhow thanks for the reply.

LView Pro 2006, the all-time classic graphics editor, is now released as FREEWARE! It works on vanilla Windows ME/98/95. I started using Lview back in like 1994 when I first started using computers, on Windows 3.1. http://www.lview.com/

I download videos from www.clipconverter.cc You need to enable javascript however, as usually I disable it. It's quite simple. It works on my basic system running Kex 4.5.2 and K-Meleon 1.7 browser.

I use the website www.clipconverter.cc and just download the mp4..... only way for me to do it. I view the downloaded movie with MPlayer WW SVN-r35

I'm still using my Windows ME computer with Kernel Ex and K-Meleon 1.7 anybody left around here?

Maybe I just need a better video card? If anyone is aware of a video card that works in DOS, with minimal fuss, and at 1024x768 resolution with programs like QPV/386, PictView, QuickView Pro, SEA, Display, I would be thrilled! Thanks!

I have DOS image viewers on my Windows ME computer, but they can't recognize any screen resolution beyond 800x600 High Color. When I'm running Windows my graphics display is set to 1024x768 True Color. But when I run a dos prompt under windows, and use DOS programs, they don't detect higher resolutions. I would like to be able to use the 1024x768 resolution that my graphics card is capable of, while in DOS mode, if possible. Is there some updated VESA driver that I can use? My graphic card is the integrated kind.... here are my computer specs: https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-pavilion-7845-minitower/ Only thing I've upgraded is the RAM. Things I've tried: rebooting the computer in DOS mode, which didn't work, programs still don't recognize anything more than 800x600.