After installing a 3Com network card into a windows 98SE system, the internet stopped working, tried re-installing Wsock files as norton popped up a message moaning about connection to port 110 for mail. Having done this, every time we boot the system the following error appears - A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:C1C02B9C in VXD WINSOCK2(02) + 0000024C. etc, etc. No more boot. :-( I have tried through safe mode to remove the winsock entries, removing TCP/IP, running DCOM98, removing the network card, running VIA service pack update, even re-installing 98 over itself, always back to the same problem. Does anyone know of a cure? Other that is than re-loading windows from scratch, help appreciated in advance.

This could help as after I installed a network card for win98 i lost internet power. Your right in the way that its to do with winsock. Its actually winsock2 that keeps getting corrupted. Dont ask me why. Mine still does it sumtimes. NE ways : Run regedit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services . In here will be two folders in particular : winsock and winsock2. Delete the winsock2 folder. Now close it up but dont reset. Go into control panel : add remmove programs and go to the Windows setup tab. Under communications unintall Dial up networking and restart. Now when u restart reinstall Dial Up Networking u should b fine. Sumtimes u have to restart after reinstalling but I found it woznt nessecary. Hope it helps

Sorry, between posting and waiting for an answer, your suggestion cropped up elsewhere in the forum, which I tried with no success. More info: I've tried renaming USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT to kill the registry and re-load windows, but the same error came up, I now think that there is definately a file problem, also on reload of 98 I get 'can't find sucatreg.exe' (I have scanned for viruses with 0 found) which I skip.