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Thank you very much for your further helpful information Noguru. And thank you Eidenk for your tip about DirectX on slower machines. I have found Directx 8.1b and its appears to be in two sizes: DirectX8.1bRedistPackage.EXE 24.6mb or DirectX81eng.exe (this is 8.1b) 12mb I assume I download the second smaller one. Just want to be sure with my slow download speed I am not sure I really need DirectX. I do not do banking on the web and only really surf and email. I am also short of Dialup time at the moment. I get a new allocation on the 15th of April. Could I do my new install, get online with it, and then download DirectX and install it later? Sorry about all these questions... and sorry I can't help you Spock.

Thanks for the informative reply Noguru. It is much appreciated. I have looked at the usp2 subforum. And below I have put some comments and questions in square brackets in your list: - Win98se - IE6 SP1 [how about if I put Firefox and Thunderbird in here instead of IE6? I get rather confused with all the SPs, updates, hotfixes? and/or whatever with IEwhatever] - DirectX9.0c [do I really need this? I am not into anything fancy in the video line. And I note the download can be between 10kb and 162mb! from ms] - Hardware drivers (motherboard, sound, video) - Ms. Office (if you want) [not using this] - Unofficial Service Pack 2.1a - Visit Ms. update for what is missing (IE6 updates mostly) [won't need this if I am not using IE6 will I?] I am wondering if the places I setup for connecting to my ISP are in the browser or in Win98se? And also where I put my pop data in. Is that in my email program or Win98se? And at what stage in the install would I do this? I should be right if I can understand the basic order of doing things and where it is done. (I have installed 98se and IE5 before but it was rather hit and miss and it was quite some time ago). And yes, just as well I am not on broadband. The speed alone would kill me, let alone the computer (It is 733mhz and 256mb).

Greetings. A nice site you have here. I have been using Windows 98se for quite a while. I have never been able to get whatever IE comes with the cd to install/work and have installed IE5 from an old ISP provided cd I have. I have never installed any patches, upgrades or such and am now having difficulty getting on a number of sites. I am thinking of another fresh install. What I would like to know is: what is the recommended install method, including the installation of IE and the unofficial service pack? Could anyone point me in the right direction please. I am a bit of an oldtimer, live in New Zealand and am on dialup. With best wishes to All...