Hello... been posting my problem around and this site looks great.

Having a problem with my older system running Win98SE and startup.
The system was running fine the day before.

Here are the scenarios: While the startup logo is displayed, there is an intermittent pause, then it restarts itself, logo comes back up and then the message about how Windows wasnt shutdown completely and gives you choices with Safe mode highlighted. I go into safe mode, do a complete shutdown, try starting up again, but the same thing happens.

When I chose 1. Normal instead of safe mode, the screen displays the message "Window Protection Error. You need to restart your computer".

I performed AVG antivirus, Spybot, Adaware, Scandisk, and a defrag. No change.

Can this problem be corrected by me or take it to a shop ? I noticed an earlier post about cleaning out the mainboard and checking device connections.

I do remember that the wife was printing from Printmaster to a Canon printer via a USB port and the printer and PC locked up. Rebooting the PC is when the problem started. Hope this helps.

Thanks

cut and paste:

http://www.computing.net/cgi-bin/AT-search.cgi?mode=concept&search=Windows+Protection+Error&forum=Windows9x&sp=sp&x=24&y=5

If it's only been a day or two you might try restoring a previous registry. When you get the menu following the 'bad' shutdown message, choose 'command prompt only'. Then at the prompt type scanreg/restore and enter. Choose a registry to restore with a date that precedes the problem.

Also, from safe mode run scandisk. Choose to do a thorough scan so it also checks the surface. If it finds any bad spots or lost file fragments there's a good chance you have some corrupted files. In that case you may need to do an over-the-top reinstallation of windows.