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I am using an Intel Celeron 400Mhz PC with Windows 98. Whenever I shut down my PC, it does not show the shutdown screen, with the message `It's now safe to turn off your computer'. Just a few months ago, I used to get that message, and but now, even after applying the default screen through the desktop themes, I still don't get the shutdown screen to appear. Please advise me as to what I should do. Also, the system always pops up two other screens (start up and wait). Why does this happen? Please suggest a solution. There are two possible reasons for this. One is that the image file displaying the "it's now safe to turn off your computer" message could have gone corrupt. The windows splash screens are image files with a ".sys" extension. Here is a list of the files to which each splash screen refers:

1) "Start up Screen" - logo.sys

2) "Wait While Windows Shuts Down" - logow.sys and

3) "It's Safe to Switch OFF your PC Now" - logos.sys

You should find these files in the Windows directory. Please note that these are all hidden and read only files, so you will have to choose the `show all files' option when searching for these files.

In your case the logos.sys file might have gone corrupt. You can replace it with the original one by extracting the logos.sys file from the Net8.cab file, which you should find in your win98 CD or in any folder where you have stored the windows setup files. Usually one can find the setup files at "c:\windows\options\install".

Please use the extract command to extract the files. Here is how you do it. Open command prompt and type, Extract /a /l C:\Windows Net8.cab logos.sys.

The other reason for the "it's now safe to turn off your computer" message not showing up is that you could have some hardware issues which cause the system to hang during the final stage of its shutdown. The hardware issue could be an ACPI problem or one due to newly added hardware. As far as the ACPI settings are concerned, as a workaround you can disable the advanced power management in the control panel, for which you will have to refer to your mother board manual for bios settings and support for ACPI interface.

Please check to see if the BIOS is involved in the issue. In order to find this, please apply the following steps. Restart the system and boot into DOS mode, rename the Bios.vxd file in your system folder to Bios.bak, then restart the system. If this solves the problem, then the BIOS is the problem causer, which means that you will have to update your bios to the latest.

Also, a shutdown supplement patch is available at the Microsoft site which addresses restart and hanging issues on shutdown. You can download it from the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/windows98

/downloads/contents/wurecommended/

s_wufeatured/win98SE/

It addresses shutdown issues on systems with specific hardware/software configurations running Win98 SE. Please download and run the supplement.

Please e-mail us at eworld@thehindu.co.in

if you have queries on computer usage or if you find an interesting way of using a computer.

Solution by G. Rajah

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