My computer freezes at 0% when I try to install communications under the add/remove windows components. I thought is was a new ethernet card that was causing this before but it does this with any hardware I try to install. I usually do a ctrl+alt+del and restart but upon startup it freezes at 0% again when trying to detect hardware components. Is there any way I can fix this? There are no conflicts in the device manager and system restore in safe mode is the only thing that gets me back up. But I still cannot install any new devices.

Several possible causes come to mind, none easy to find and fix. You could be having disk drive problems. Try running SCANDISK in Normal mode once to correct any file system errors. Then run it in Thorough mode for awhile to see if there are any disk drive errors that are causing problems and that scandisk can fix. Your system *.CAB files could be corrupt or you are using the wrong copy of them. Only way to check these is to compare the copies in the C:\Windows\Options\Install folder with those on a Windows ME install CD (or on another working copy of Windows ME). You normally have to use the DOS FC (FileCompare) command. The program that manages the Install process could be corrupted. It is one of the system DLL files and I don't know which one it is off hand, sort of hard to track down. But it might have to be tracked down and replaced. In the C:\Windows\INF (hidden folder) there are about 530 *.INF files (plus some for hardware you have added). If any of these are corrupted, then the scan through them while searching for new hardware could cause a system hang. Difficult, but not impossible to track down. You have to compare all of them to copies on a working system to see if one is corrupted. Keeping in mind, that some differences would be normal. Some spyware/Adware or Virus type program could be corrupting things and needs to be removed. If you can't stumble on the fix for the problem, then you may have to backup the whole drive so it can be restored (not system restore), as the only process that can fix some of the possible causes of the the problem, would be to install Windows ME over the top of itself. This poses two dangers in your case. If you have a bad CAB file or an added INF file (not one of the default standard ones) that is causing the problem, then the Setup/Install process could fail also, leaving you with a non working copy of Windows ME. Do you recall installing some hardware or drivers for hardware that caused this problem to start. If you do, that might give you a clue as to what *.INF to look at. They are text files that you should be able to read.