I've been experiencing this problem for about a week or so now. Startup of the system goes fine, I can open my programs without much trouble and even games seem to run well. But then, every single installer I run slows down my system dramatically. Even the most small installers that should be done in few seconds may take several minutes. The mouse gets very laggy and other programs stop responding. I've checked the system resources % and it's about 20% lower than it has normally been. Now, I've reinstalled win98 and ran ad-ware programs and checked for viruses, cut off programs from startup and finally uninstalled dozen of programs. I'm losing this fight and most of all my nerves. Anyone else experiencing the same or having the solution for this?

" I've reinstalled win98 and ran ad-ware programs and checked for viruses, cut off programs from startup and finally uninstalled dozen of programs." Was the reinstall a fresh/clean install, (ie; hard disk format) or an install "over the top" of the existing installation? While the latter is good for replacing files which have been damaged or removed by malware, it usually carries over existing problems from the original install. A possibility is memory either going bad, or, insufficient memory for the tasks you are performing. Download Memtest or Memtest86 (sorry, I don't have the particulars on this, but someone who does will probably be along shortly.) In this same vein, you could try this registry tweak to unload unused dll memory. Copy everything between the double lines (blank lines included) into Notepad or similar text only editor; Copy from here ====================== REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\AlwaysUnloadDll] @="1" To here ============================ Save it as unlddll.reg. R-click on the file and choose MERGE. A reboot will be necessary for it to take effect. Four of the most recommended programs for spyware/adware/malware are; Ad-Aware SE CWShredder Spybot - Search & Destroy SpywareBlaster Many also recommend HiJack This in this group/type of tools. It's a good day when you learn something

Find all the programs and more than Dan mentioned here: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22262,00.asp

A junk filled registry can slow things down as well. There are various registry cleaners - the simplest & most basic thing to try would be (from a DOS start) scanreg /fix .. which will also compact the registry Give me ambiguity or give me something else

Thanks for the help, people. I ran the memtest and it didn't seem to give me any errors... I ran some other spyware programs, and managed to find some more threats. Plus there were about 1020 problems in my registry, which were fixed. Then I ran scanreg/fix on DOS. Still it doesn't seem to get any better. I'll use formatting as my last way, since I only have this one big drive, with lots of data. ----------------- Struggling alongside low-end computing for 6th year.

If the data on your one big drive is important to you then it should already be backed up. If you don't have a burner, I suggest you buy one and use it.