good ol backup running Win 98SE,has started having problems after multiple attempts updating Viruscan, complete with uninstalls & reinstalls,requiring some registry editing. Will start in safe mode then I run scan disk,defrag & will run fine, but slow& slower (Pent3 500,512 mb) no infections or SPYWARE present. After CRASH,I run scan disk again,& same pattern.
      I have found descriptions of CONFIGMG,with no real solutions, & wonder if there's program that can  check & repair registry. I am thinking of possibly installing XP as this has gone on for too long, & considering Win 98 support may not be worth it. Sorry if this has been posted,but I couldn't find it.Have you tried booting to DOS and running scanreg /fix?
Download and run Regclean (a MS program).Thanks for the response. Prior to your suggestion, when I could get online I ran a few "registry repair" utilities which seemed to fix a good portion of damage. After a few attempts I finally got it to open in DOS & ran scanreg/fix. At the end :"Windows found error in system FILE & was unable to fix the problem. Try deleting some files to free up disk space in Windows drive. If that doesn't work you will need to install Windows to a new directory."  That being said I exited out of the utility & it booted up alright into Win 98, & is running now, although it has done this in the past & then tripped over itself.
     2 QUESTIONS  
1.  Deleting some files ? I have 1 20gig drive with over 9 gigs free,so I don't think space is the issue.
2. If reinstalling Windows to a new directory- still on the same hard drive,no ?just create a folder Windows 2 or similar ?
       Now to re establish network connections.  You can try doing a "dirty" install, which is simply installing windows over top of itself (if you have your original CD). Windows will offer to install to a different directory (windows001 or similar). Don't accept it, but choose to install to the original c:\windows directory.

If you have a full system backup that was made (with MS backup) before the trouble started, you can insert the windows CD (hold down the shift key to prevent autostart) and browse to tools\sysrec. From there you can REINSTALL windows and the backup. Be sure to check the readme file or print it if necessary.many thanks again for the response. Got home after working & the system was still running,although the monitor never went into sleep mode. I ran MSCONFIG & added a couple of programs to startup, (Q Books,Spysweeper) & then restarted with everything running ok. Got 2 blue screens & again restarted 4 hrs ago,while refreshing the IP address for the networking (& that's ok.)                                          
      I suspect it still has some issues,but will wait to explore your recent suggestion. I never did a full system backup,so I guess that's moot. I may have done a somewhat "dirty" install,in that I reinstalled windows with my CD & boot floppy before posting to this site. When doing a dirty install as mentioned,does that have any effect on existing applications or folders(erased?) Will it correct by overwriting bad sectors like configmg & other conflicts?  I've been wondering if I could just insert my XP CD & run that on this system. (I know that formats the hard drive.)I would first check to see if this system's drivers could support XP though.