This question would be hard to answer. First, I believe everyone who ever used
IE has experienced "illegal operation", no matter how good you are. The problem
may  related to hardware (eg. bad RAM), or software conflicts, or the windows
registry got corrupted, or I would say Windows/IE itself. IE is not a stable
program, it will crash at any time, some sources say that IE seems to be the
most "crash" program, even under NT. Windows is not stable either, the latest
W2K imporved on system stability.
Now back to your system, since you have both Netscape and IE, these two surely
don't like each other, I'm running both Netscape and IE on same machine with
peace in mind (most time) only because I use Netscape all the time, and set
Netscape to be default of everything, I only use IE for Windows Update (it
doesn't work with Netscape) and few sites which require cookie (eg. Hotmail).
Office 2000 is another program which MS designed to work with MS software best
(Netscape is clearly not). However, even they don't like each other, you should
not see that many "illegal operation"s, You should clean the windows registry,
there are two ways to do so:
1) use software such like CleanSweep, MS had a little program called RegClean,
but I don't know if MS has any new version of it, the old version may not suit
today's computing. (MS seems removed RegClean from its website)
2) Backup everything you feel needed, then rebuild windows and apps, a clear
installation is the best way to clean up registry. However, you can only do
this if you know what you are doing and what to do (most important, you will
have to have all the installation CDs). Since your computer is a laptop, I
don't suggest you to do this unless this is the last option.

There are something you can try first:
1) Disable Active Desktop (Right click mouse on screen to bring up little
pop-up menu --> Active Desktop, you can do it from control panel too)
2) Do not open both Netscape and IE and same time, and make Netscape the
default browser and email program.
3) Update windows (windows update, including IE) and Netscape (Smart update) to
latest version.
4) If possible, contact IBM for some help.

Good luck!

(if you need instructions, you can email to my personal email address to
[log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask])

Jun Qian


Julie wrote:

> Hi,
>
> What might be a likely cause for "illegal operation" messages popping up
> whenever I try to make a shortcut by moving an icon (rightclick, drag,
> choose "create shortcut" method)?  It happens within the explorer panes, on
> the desktop, and in choosing a destination from the "send to" menu.  I am
> using Win98 on an IBM laptop (3 mos. old) with 64MB and a Celeron.  IE5,
> Comm. 4.6, and Office Pro 2000 have existed for the entire time I've had
> this system.  The mouse is a USB, and an external monitor is hooked up, but
> this happens when it is a stand-alone unit as well.  A few day prior, I had
> installed Homesite 4.0 and Fireworks.

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