This has been recurring for a while, but no tech support or advice on how to fix it has worked. First, IE started freezing up at random times, and nothing short of a control-alt-delete restart would fix it. So we switched to Netscape. This worked for a while, but eventually Netscape became unstable and any attempt to close the program would freeze up the computer. So we switched to Mozilla, which worked for longer than Netscape but eventually started having similar problems. Eventually, we had to uninstall Mozilla, but now every time you turn the computer on IE automatically starts up and any attempt to close it freezes the computer. We’re stumped. Has anyone ever seen anything like this before?
(and yes, we’ve already deleted all the temp files. In fact, that seems to be the only solution anyone could come up with!)
I’ve had several experiences similar to this, but the problem was W98, not the browser. That it has happened with several browsers makes me think that maybe it’s an OS degradation. In my experience, many computers running W98 get some kind of irritating bug or process running in the background that screws everything up, but the Task Manager in W98 doesn’t allow you to stop processes, only registered applications.
Have you tried repairing the OS with the installation disk?
Better still upgrade to 2000 or XP, though I appreciate that might not be an option.
Another thing that’s occurred to me is maybe to check the settings in “Active Desktop” (properties from right-clicking on the desktop). This might possibly be trying to launch the stupid desktop-as-browser feature, but messing it up somehow.
Also run Spybot Search & Destroy (do a Google search, it’s a free download). You might have some spyware or other stuff that interferes with normal operation. Try as much as you can before an OS reisntall!!