Any time I try and download anything,the status bar starts blinking wildly and t...

any time i try and download anything,the status bar starts blinking wildly and then a website yopta.info pops up. i started noticing this problem after yahoo was dowloaded.can this be partially to blame, or coincidence?

This question was answered on September 8, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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For whatever reason, someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea for your system to double check for floppies just in case you popped one in after the BIOS had done it's duty, but before Windows started You can cut down on your start-up time by disabling this feature.

1 Go to Start/Settings/Control Panel

2 Double-click System, then click the Performance tab.

3 Press the File System button and select the Floppy Disk tab.

4 Finally, uncheck the "Search For New Floppy Disk..." box.

Now your system won't automatically search for diskettes in your floppy drive when you turn it on Note that this will not preclude the use of an emergency recovery disk Disabling this search in Windows 98 has no effect on your BIOS Even if it did, you could always go into your CMOS setup during a reboot and reset it.

** SPEED UP YOUR DRIVE WITH DISK DEFRAGMENTER

Under Windows 98, the Disk Defragmenter does more than simply group together the disparate parts of files It also has a new technology that reorders the clusters of the program files you use the most so that the programs will run faster Some programs (most notably Microsoft Office programs) tend to start up considerably faster after you defrag The first time you run Defrag, you'll see an optimization Wizard that sets up a log of program usage to aid in speeding up the programs you use most often Here's how you get started:

1 Select Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter.

2 When the program's opening screen pops up, click Settings.

3 Make sure that the option "Rearrange program files so my programs

start faster" is checked Click OK, and in the opening screen, click

OK to start the process.

It's best to leave your computer alone while defragmenting goes on, as it slows the system to a crawl and stops whenever a piece of data gets written to the disk

About the author

Posted by Shamsul of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on September 8, 2004

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