First of all, I would like to recommend that he get more Ram. Running
windows 98 with only 32mb will slow performance tremendously, and will
probably lead to a lot of  page fault errors and system freeze-ups. It has
already been recommended to you to run the sfc program (system file checker)
to fix the corrupted file, if it is corrupted. You can do this but I don't
think it will do much good because updating to Win98 should have taken care
of that problem, if that was the problem. What SFC does is check your system
files for corruption and give you the option to restore any file(s) that's
found to be corrupted. It's a good way of finding bad files and fixing them
instead of having to go through a Windows reinstall every time. So when you
installed the Win98 it would have written over the old file anyway and
replaced it with the new one. Unless the new file is also corrupt, I doubt
that SFC will find anything. Even if it was the case that your dad deleted
some programs that might have deleted some file related to his control
panel, a new Windows installation, be it Win95 or 98, should have corrected
this. My point here is that the problem may be caused by his Ram. I once had
the exact same problem as your dad, not only with the control panel, but
with my windows explorer also. When I tried to get into my control panel
none of the icons would appear and my computer would freeze, and the same
with windows explorer. It turned out to be a problem with my Ram. I was
using two 32mb chips and it was either one of the chips was defective or one
was not compatible with the other , or one of the chips was not compatible
with my motherboard. As soon as I replaced both chips with one 64mb chip my
problem disappeared. So my advice would be to take out the 32mb chip and put
in a 64mb chip and see what happens. You should do this anyway just for the
fact he is now using Windows98.



> From: Geraldine Dunne :Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 6:09 AM
> Subject: [PCSOFT] Control Panel Gone
>
>
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > Love some help on this one.  My father has a Pentium 120MHz with 32mb
RAM
> > and has recently installed Windows 98.  The reason he did install it was
> > because he had lost his access into the control panel.  Everytime he got
> to
> > the stage of waiting for the control panel window to open the computer
> would
> > just freeze.
> >
> > This started to happen after he had removed some programs he no longer
> > wanted, by the way.
> >
> > He was running Windows 95 and wanted to upgrade anyway and we were both
> > hoping that the new version would solve the problem, but no such luck.
> >
> > Look forward to your help.
> >
> > Regards
> > Gerry Dunne
> >
>
> Control Panel is known as a virtual folder and can be found in the Windows
> directory as control.exe.  It sounds like his control.exe has become
> corrupted.  You can replace the Control.exe file using  SFC.EXE  that is
> found in  c:\windows\system\sfc.exe  or you can access the System file
> checker from Start\Programs\Accesories\System Tools\ System Information.
> Click the  Tools in the menu and then select "System File Checker" from
the
> drop down menu and follow the instructions.    Make sure to have your
Win98
> install cd handy when you replace the file.
>
> Mary Wolden
>
>       "Hold No Punches.." Rode brings you great shareware/freeware
>         programs with his honest opinions in this weekly column.
>                          http://nospin.com/rode

      "Hold No Punches.." Rode brings you great shareware/freeware
        programs with his honest opinions in this weekly column.
                         http://nospin.com/rode