any fix short of an OS reinstall?

[jstnomega]

W's 98SE problem: in Explorer (not IE) the File > New Folder function is MIA - not greyed out, just plain not there - something I've never encountered before, else all is seemingly well.

Any options short of a reformatt? TIA. (More details readily available. Just ask!)

[Murf]

First thing I wouyd try:

START | RUN

Type in

SFC

Hit OK

Check for altered files, have Win 98 CD ready

May fix it.

[jstnomega]

Thx for the reply Murf.

First thing I did was run RegClean. No help, no joy.

Then I ran SFC. No help, no joy.

Then I ScanDisked & Defragged the C drive (40GB HD w/7 partitions C-I, of which D is a 1.3GB fixed swap drive - fdisk math can be hard! but it's worked until now.) Still no help & no joy.

Maybe this heavily-hammered-on 15 month old OS install is just too tired to carry on?

[pmckinnie]

Reinstall 98SE over the current installation. That will install everything that is missing without losing anything.

gl mac

[jstnomega]

pmckinnie, That's an option I am considering. Kind of a next-to-last-resort option tho. Problem's more than 4 days old, cuz scanreg /restore also fails to get me out of this mess. Was hoping to find a lighter-handed alternative than a reinstall over existing install, cuz I'm not quite sure how that would effect all the other stuff installed on all the other partitions - file assoc's & all of that. If everything not on the C drive would have to be reinstalled anyway, may as well just start fr ground zero - maybe.

[pmckinnie]

You should not have any problems with any other programs or their connections to windows. If you have to format the drive, then you would need to reinstall most of your programs, but an over install will not have that problem.

cheers mac

[chaszal]

Hi jstnomega, long time no see.
I was thinking you might want to check out Xen, if you haven't already. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mrx9000/
There seems to be a lot of useful info/stuff there.

Downloads...

• Xen
• XenTweak - the NEW tweaker on the block
• XenHosts
• Useful Scripts
• Tweaking and Optimising Windows in Word Format
• Tweaking and Optimising Windows in HTML Format (160 + pages!)

For example, # 69 in "Tweaking and Optimizing Windows":

"69. Got problems and don't want to reinstall...
Don't wanna lose any of your settings or software? There's a command line option that'll get you back on your feet in no time. Boot up your PC with a Windows 98 boot disk, pop in your Windows 98 CD, and once you're at the command prompt, type your CD-ROM drive letter immediately followed by a colon. So, if your CD was set to "D" you'd enter D: and then hit ENTER. At this point, type the following command: SETUP /pf. This switch will restore all of Windows critical files to their factory state, and in 99% of situations doing this will fix whatever problems you were having in Windows 98. "

I haven't had need to try it out (yet). If you do, let us know how it goes.

Chas

[jstnomega]

chaszal old friend! Nice to hear fr you. Hope you are doing well. Thx for the links & info. You too pmckinnie. A little encouragement at a time like this is most welcome. Haven't yet decided what to do next but will keep you all posted.

chaszal, I gotta figure out how to combine that switch option w/my custom install, which just means more digging to figure out what I did/didn't load/install way back when.

File under things to make one think of switching to XP.

[XOR]

This sounds more like a policy setting to me.
Can you rightclick on the desktop and chose New > Folder?
If so open regedit and go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
and see if there is a value NoFileMenu set to 1
If so delete it.

[jstnomega]

XOR, TY for the reply. No. That functionality was also MIA.

However, GOOD NEWS! Problem resolved!

On the off chance that IE just might have something to do w/it, just ran an IE Repair process fr the Add/Remove prog's thingie & the Explorer File menu function of New > Folder is restored.

HOORAY! FWIW, IE 6 SP1 & no other indication of any prob's w/IE. Strange.