Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations Chriss Miller on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

windows 98 start up menu

Status
Not open for further replies.

Guest_imported

New member
Joined
Jan 1, 1970
Messages
0
I am having problems with start up on windows 98. I am starting up with a black screen with 6 choices instead of my desktop. The top of the screen says, 1. Normal, 2. Loged (\BOOTLOG.TXT), 3. Safe Mode, 4. Step-by-step confirmation, 5. Command prompt only, 6. Safe mode command prompt only. how do I get my computer to just restat and go straight into my desktop? Any help will be greatly apprechiated.
Thank you
 
as i was searching throughout the other questions and answers i found a couple with a similiar situation and they have said to go to MSDOS.SYS and change the BootGUI=1, these settings are already at 1.
once again any help will be apprechiated
thank you
 
Have you tried booting to safe mode. Then run scandisk and sfc. then reboot. Does that help?

To run sfc go to START>RUN and type sfc James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.
 
bobless has found it.
SFC won't do anything, as you cannot restore MSDOS.sys via SFC, you must edit it manually. Cheers,
Jim
iamcan.gif
 
bobless,

Go to Start>Run, type msconfig, click the Advanced button and uncheck "Enable Startup Menu"

reghakr
 
Comtech.
You are probebly correct here about the Msdos.sys. But I have seen where corrupt system files will bring up the menu. In those cases editing the msdos.sys does not help. That was my thinking. repair the system files if they need it. But as I stated you are probebly correct in that this is just a simple msdos.sys issue. :-) James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.
 
SFC on a system that's been operating for 6 months or so, is a very dangerous thing. It will replace any NEWER files with the originals from CD, so all your MS updates are gone, any .dll's that have been updated for graphics progs are gone, anything to do with networking...you get the picture?
SFC should be used ONLY to extract single files, and ONLY when one KNOWS what file does what, and why.
I've had customers go nuts with SFC, and replace USER.EXE
Any idea what happens after THAT little booboo? X-) Cheers,
Jim
iamcan.gif
 
WOW. I have never had a problem with it as of yet. I use it quite a bit to fix corruption problems here. You have the option of telling SFC where to locate a replacement file. So if you have updated your system you can direct the search to the update folder. Thats how I perform it. So far (last 2 years) have not had any issues. James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.
 
Should I add a comment, yes I think I will.

I agree that System File Checker is a dangerous program. It's documented in the Knowledge base that it mis-identifies files as being missing or corrupt. Sure, they may be missing, but upgrades to products such as Internet Explorer, eliminate the need for these DLL foiles completely.

Other dangers are if you have upgraded DirectX and/or Windows Media Player.

This app should have never been included with Windows. I do the same as Comtech, using it only to extract and replace one file. Anyway, people running Win98 have the option of searching inside of files and they can easily extract a file from the cab files using Winzip or similar.

bobless, you can also add BootKeys=0 to the msdos.sys file if my suggestion above doesn't work

reghakr
 
I agree with the both of you that its a dangerous tool if not used properly. BUT it is also a very useful tool for those who know how to use it. True I should not tell the average user they should use it. I am the only one here who seems to be able to use it with out problems. no big deal, I was just stating that it can be used. I also agree that the problem is probebly the msdos.sys file. James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.
 
It may be alright if you used the tool at the onset of Windows and you kept up the files on a regular basis. But I'm sure you realize the average user does not do this. That's the problem.

If it was such a great asset to Windows, Microsoft should have provided a link for it on the Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools menu.

Again, I don't mean to offend you, this is just my opinion.

reghakr
 
No offense taking. MS does not include links to a lot of good tools. This is especially evident in Win NT and 2000. They just dont think day to day users should use anything outside scan disk and defrag. There are tools you favor over others as well. I like using the ones that come with windows because they are free and if used correctly work well. (i am cheap). James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top