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Does Spybot SD Work on Win98 ?


JorgeA

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Hello,

I've been using Spybot Search & Destroy on my Windows 98 Dell Dimension V400c tower since about 2003. But for approximately the last two years (I think since version 1.5 or so was released), my PC has been unable to finish a Spybot manual scan. It goes through the entire list, and then it comes to a halt at the exact end of the scan with an "illegal operation" error that points to an "Invalid Page Fault."

I've been wondering if there are any other Windows 98 diehards on this forum who have experienced this issue. I can still use Spybot for its resident functions, but the on-call scans take forever, and never actually finish.

For what it's worth, I use Windows 98 First Edition and my PC has 384MB of RAM, which I believe is the most that the model's specs allow. It ran on just 96MB for a decade, and as a test I topped it up, but that didn't seem to make any difference to Spybot's performance.

I have posted this issue on the Safer Networking forum a number of times, and communicated privately with the good folks on the Spybot team, but nobody seems to have a good answer as to what might be going on. I've tried everything that's been suggested, including defragging the hard drive, deleting the temporary files, adjusting the swap file size, erasing the IE temporary Internet files, but nothing has worked.

As of now the conclusion appears to be simply that the problem is due to "a 12-year-old operating system." Might that be true, or is there something else I could try to get Spybot to work fully? Do you use it, and how well does it work on your system?

Thanks in advance for any useful suggestions, and for your patience if I have violated any forum rules or policies. This is my first post here, please treat me gently. :D

--JorgeA

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Spybot S&D still works flawlessly in my system. It's Win 98SE with 98SE2ME.

Thanks dencorso, this gives me hope that I might get to fix this.

Is it possible that Spybot runs on your system because you have so much memory (1GB) on it, and that there's no way that it'll run properly anymore on just 384MB? I wonder if it's a question of having enough RAM to keep up with the growing database size. (Spybot runs great on my Vista machine.)

--JorgeA

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Hi JorgeA,

Last Spybot is running fine here on Windows 98 SE (but takes more than 1h30 to achieve a complete scan).

You could try a complete uninstall and then a clean new install.

Here are instructions: How to uninstall

and I have uploaded you a reg file to sweep the registry.

HTH

Hi Charles,

Thanks a bunch for the instructions and the cleanup file, I'll try them.

I remember that Spybot kept taking longer and longer to complete the scan, even before it stopped finishing them. Toward the end it was taking like 5-6 hours!! Now the scan is down to "just" 2 hours or so, but of course it's not actually finishing the job.

Hopefully the cleanup and re-install will help. Thanks again.

--JorgeA

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I wonder if it's a question of having enough RAM to keep up with the growing database size.

My Windows 98SE computer is running with Pentium III 500 MHz and 384 MB of RAM too. ;)

Hopefully the cleanup and re-install will help. Thanks again.

You're welcome. :)

Charles.

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I wonder if it's a question of having enough RAM to keep up with the growing database size.

My Windows 98SE computer is running with Pentium III 500 MHz and 384 MB of RAM too. ;)

Hopefully the cleanup and re-install will help. Thanks again.

You're welcome. :)

Charles.

Hi Charles,

I'm sorry to report that, after uninstalling Spybot as per the instructions, running the utility you uploaded, and downloading and re-installing Spybot -- it still did the same thing: it ran the scan, reached the last file after 3 hours 15 minutes... and then crashed with the same Invalid Page Fault error as before. :wacko:

I rebooted the PC to verify the info on the CPU. It's an Intel Celeron running at 400 MHz. (System Properties under Control Panel calls it a Pentium II but that's not the case.) The data provided by Norton SystemWorks says it's a Family 6 Model 6, which fits.

Could the difference in our processors be the deciding factor in whether Spybot will run or not? I doubt that it could be the OS -- that it would still run O.K. on 98SE but not on FE as I have.

Anyhow, thanks for trying. Are we out of ammo?

--JorgeA

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JorgeA wrote: "my PC has 384MB of RAM, which I believe is the most that the model's specs allow. It ran on just 96MB for a decade, and as a test I topped it up, but that didn't seem to make any difference to Spybot's performance."

Try removing the original 96MB and try with only your newer RAM installed.

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In your case , you can try to manualy set the swap file, that work well on a little machine :)

look at this : http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=54635

Woow, it's terrific! :thumbup

I assume that a so small fixed swap file cannot be used for all applications, specially if you open several at the same time.

What would be the good compromise for my Pentium III 500Mhz with 384 MB of RAM running Windows 98SE?

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If you use TeaTimer, try disabling it for the duration of the scan. It's a longshot, but worth trying.

Hi dencorso,

Unfortunately, I've tried that before and it didn't help, but thank you anyway. Every one of my attempts at fixing the problem has been defeated by the computer. SO FAR. (I'm not giving up yet.)

--JorgeA

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In your case , you can try to manualy set the swap file, that work well on a little machine :)

look at this : http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=54635

Hi patclash,

Very interesting thread you pointed me to, thanks! A couple months ago I tried manually setting the swap file at high settings, but now I'll try setting it real low for both minimum and maximum, and then see what happens.

--JorgeA

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JorgeA wrote: "my PC has 384MB of RAM, which I believe is the most that the model's specs allow. It ran on just 96MB for a decade, and as a test I topped it up, but that didn't seem to make any difference to Spybot's performance."

Try removing the original 96MB and try with only your newer RAM installed.

Hi georg,

Thanks for the idea. The PC came with two 48MB RAM modules installed. Back in January I took them out and put in three new 128MB modules, hoping that that would do the trick, but it didn't seem to make any difference to Spybot.

--JorgeA

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I've got Search and Destroy installed on two 98se computers, one is a 133 with only 64 mb,

and the other is 667 with 191 mb.

It takes about half an hour for the first I mentioned to open up, and a very long time to scan.

The second faster PC opens the prog in about 10 to fifteen minuets, and takes the usual hour and one half to almost two-- to scan.

Once the scan is completed in both, the only way I can shut the prog down, is using the Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys.

But the thing is, that at first I was impatient--and did not think it was working at all (in both computers) and would use Ctrl + Alt + Delete to shut Search and Destroy down: in both cases was told that the program was not responding.

The point being, that one day I decided to just wait, no matter how long, to see if the prog was or was not really responding --and sure enough, to my surprise---the prog was indeed responding---so slowly, that Windows must have thought it was not!

So now, I find something else to do, whilst I wait the usual 20 to half an hour for Search and Destroy to open up---which it eventually does indeed do.

Edited by cyberformer
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