Eh, I said it was a long time ago. But still, I remember for some apps (read 'games') I had to add some DOS drivers and/or remove others and there just may be something else besides those two. Maybe some entries in wininit.ini...? Dunno, I feel it was more than autoexec and config. But maybe I'm wrong. Wouldn't hurt to check though. I saw the OP has Norton (or Volkov?) Commander so it shouldn't be hard to navigate the Windows folder and look at some important files (and search for possible backups of those).

 

Hopefully the problem will be solved without reinstalling.

Guys really thank you all for the detailed help and guidance but due to lack of time I just formatted the PC with fresh win98. I actually messed around with msconfig and could not even get to safemode