1. Regular maintenance:  Run scandisk and defragmentation on a fairly regular basis.  I do mine once a week.  You will find these by going to START, PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS, SCANDISK.  This is the one you should run first.  You will find two options here, just run a regular scan 3 out of 4 times and the 4th time choose thorough.  It will take longer, especially if not done on a regular basis.  After that has been done, you want to go to START, PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS, DEFRAGMENTATION.  This could take a while if you haven't done it on regular basis or if you are running Win 98 and have a huge hardrive.  After these are run on your hardrive, you need to restart your system.  

2.  Eliminate temporary files (tmp) files from your hardrive.  These can accumulate and waste a lot of space.  An easy way to do this is to go to START, FIND, FILES OR FOLDERS. You will get a window that you will need to type the following in   *.*tmp   (star dot star tmp - without the underline) and hit enter.  You will get a listing of temp files that exist on your system.  Anything that is prior to the date you are working on can safely be deleted.  You may be surprised how much space is used by these files.

3. When you are told to click the mouse button 9 times out of 10 it means the left button.  If you use a single right click you will get a menu with more options.  If you are viewing a webpage and see a picture that you would like to use for your desktop, right click on the picture and choose save as.  Choose bmp format and save it in your windows folder. When offline right click in the center of your screen and choose properties.  You will need to browse for your picture and viola, a new desktop.  You can also right click on an icon and choose properties and change that icon to something you like better, again you will need to browse for icons. If you have it on your system there is one called cool.dll usually found in the windows folder and another called moricons.dll found in the windows system folder. There are many more but this takes some searching, choose something and it will tell you if there are no icons in that folder, just keep looking till you find something you like.  When you've made your choice, choose apply and ok. Viola-new shortcuts!

4.  I created a folder that I keep on my desktop named download.  Whenever I download anything or save a picture from the web I save it to that folder, makes it much easier to locate later.  To create a new folder on your desktop, right click on an empty space on your desktop.  Choose new folder and name it what ever suits you.  You can also change the looks of this folder as described above.

5.  Pictures that you are sending via email or publishing on the web should be in jpg or gif format.  You can send them in bmp format but they are much larger that way and take considerably longer to download.

6.  One of the greatest causes of problems with your PC is the installation (or removal) of a software.  This doesn't mean you shouldn't do this (heaven forbid), but it might take some searching on your part to find out what the problem is.  Frequently it is a DLL file that has been overwritten.  Uninstall your new software first to see if this resolves the problem.  Go to START, SETTINGS, CONTROL PANEL, ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS or use that software's uninstall.  Don't just delete the program, you probably won't be removing the problem that way.  You can also get online and go to the website for your particular software.  There is usually lots of support available as well as patches to correct problems.  You will also find instructions for applying the patch, usually as simple as downloading and unzipping the file.  Your computer usually handles the rest.

7.  There are some very handy utilities available for free on the web.  A good place to look for some of these is http://www.shareware.com.  There are many others but this is a good start.  One utility is called tweakui, and it does all kinds of neat things such as removing the arrows from your shortcuts and  allowing you to customize your desktop.  When you install it, you will find it in the control panel.  Very nifty little program.  If shareware doesn't have what you're looking for just try searching for windows utilities or simply utilities.  You will also find a viewer called irfanview that is really good.  It will allow you to view virtually any picture you download in any format. Just choose open for the picture you want to view and the viewer will do the rest.  I haven't found a picture format yet that it can't open.

8. Windows 98 comes with a handy way to check your Registry for errors. Go to-- START, PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS, SYSTEM INFORMATION. Select the Registry Checker from the Tools menu. If there are errors it may ask you to insert your original Win98 CD, so have it handy.