I killed my computer! Help!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…The one at home, obviously, not this one.

I use NetZero, and I’ve had problems logging in from the beginning; only now have I bothered to figure out how to ask them for help. Many times while logging in I’ve gotten this message under a ZCast banner: “This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.”

So I get a response from their Customer Support with some instructions; at the bottom it says, “By the way, you should download Winsock 2 Update,” and there’s a link to the Microsoft download page. I go there, follow their instructions to create a file, and download the update. It also says I need to download a Year 2000 update. So I do that; then I closed all my windows, opened the file with the Winsock 2, double-clicked on it to install it, closed that window and re-started my computer.

Then I got a scary response: my computer said “Windows configuration is invalid” and I needed to “run Windows setup.” It offered to put me into Safe Mode, which sounded good to me. Now all I can get is a blank desktop with the words “Safe Mode” in the four corners of the screen. I can get to a setup menu, but I don’t know how to use it. What do I need to change?

FWIW: I have Windows 95 and IE 5.5. Help!

2

I’m not sure. Try to un-install NetZero and see if that helps. Barring that (I am not really good at troubleshooting) I would back up important data and do a reformat. When is the last time you did a reformat, BTW? Win95 leaves tons-o-clutter in the registry and windows folder when you uninstall old programs. For an average home user, I would do it about once a year or so… but thats just what I would reccomend. Definetly not necessary for all.

3

Follow Microsoft’s directionshere

Since you already know that it doesn’t boot into safe mode (hence the screen with the “safe mode” in the corners), go straight to that section.

Good luck.