Windows users: HELP! Zone Alarm and Blue Screen of Death!

[bbernardini]

I'm trying to troubleshoot my mother-in-law's computer. The machine still has Windows 98 on it. She recently had lots of spyware problems and whatnot, so she installed the usual stuff like AdAware, SpyBot and ZoneAlarm. That seemed to eliminate the problems, but since then, she gets the blue screen of death every time the computer is shut down. If the user dismisses it, the machine then seems to shut down normally. However, it's still a pain in the ass.

I've done some research, and it looks as though ZoneAlarm might be the cause of this problem. However, I'm not familiar enough with all of this "dll" nonsense, so I don't want to try to uninstall and reinstall anything until I'm sure about what's going on. Has anybody else heard of or experienced this problem? How did you fix it?

[Sporadicus]

1. The '.dll Nonsense' Sounds Driver-Related

Perhaps ZoneAlarm has a driver specific to Windows 98. Check their website.

[Solon]

2. Problem could be Zone Alarm or not...

Try to quit Zone Alarm independently of shutting down, then see if the computer will shut down normally. Win98 is a piece of crap and dynamic link library (.dll) problems are common on it. Do the three finger salute (Control-Alt-Delete) and see if she has anything running that could conflict with Zone Alarm or any other programs.

[lojasmo]

3. Quick run out and get an Imac!

[CrownPrinceBandar]

4. Dump ZA.........................

get Sygate.

http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm

Its free.