hi have small problem which i think stems from the botched installation of an IR port. on startup i get the following......... Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer. An internal stack overflow has caused this session to be halted. Change the stacks settings in your config.sys file and then try again. Contents of my config.sys file are...... DEVICE=C:\\windows\panning.sys By the way i dont have my win98se cd to hand. any help appreciated cheers

Well, if it was me, I'd REM out that line. What I mean is edit your config.sys file and in front of that offending line that you posted above, type this: rem DEVICE=C:\\windows\panning.sys Now that line will be ignored by windows when it's booting up. rem is short for "remark", so windows just bypasses it. You could always just outright delete the whole entry as well. Good Luck raincheck

Probably the easiest way is to edit your config.sys from dos. Boot the computer and start tapping the F8 key before windows starts to load. From the startup menu choose 'command prompt only'. At the c:\> prompt type: edit c:\config.sys Add the line: STACKS=64,512 Use the ALT key to access the toolbar to save and exit the file. See if it'll boot normally now. Windows usually doesn't need config.sys but since you're using one you may need to edit it further to include himem.sys. But try the above fix and see if it works.

I don't think panning.sys is associated with the IR installation. I did a brief search and it seems to be associated with neomagic video drivers on a toshiba laptop. Here's some info: http://support.toshiba-tro.de/internet/info/newslett/tro1610.htm

DAVE IN CAPS: Do you think that the botched install of IR caused the deletion of the "STACKS=64,512" line in his config.sys? I'm just trying to learn something here, cuz my config.sys says : DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.exe Stacks=0,0

right, tried rem'ing the first line. same thing happened. added the line re STACKS=64,512 - again same thing happened. deleted all sys lines - you guessed - same thing. tried deleting everything in config.sys tab - same again. finally copied the data from the last response and put it in config.sys - similar thing happened, but only the pc replied with only " Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer." HEELLPPP!!!!!!!

Try booting to safe mode. Start the computer. Before the OS starts to load start tapping the F8 key. Choose safe mode from the boot menu. Go to add/remove programs in control panel and see if you can remove the IR software there. Then reboot and see if it goes to normal mode. If you can't get to safe mode or you can but can't remove the software or after removing the software it still doesn't boot to normal mode then reboot to the boot menu again. Choose 'command prompt only'. At the c:\> prompt type: scanreg/restore and enter. Choose a registry to restore with a date that precedes the problem. When it's done, reboot and see if it goes to normal mode. Raincheck, I doubt there was a stacks line there to begin with. I've noticed when I upgrade from 3.1 to 98 the setup process removes the stacks line from config.sys. Dos has a default stack of 8,128. I imagine windows has a default also. So that line would normally not be needed. I think the maximum setting is 64,512. That's why I suggested it. Setting your stacks to 0,0 should disable all stacks including the default. Although windows may override that.