Microsoft Windows 98 Case Studies & Practical Application 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A user's Windows 98 PC freezes randomly during gaming. After checking temperatures and RAM, you suspect the AGP graphics card. Which Windows 98 tool would you use to verify the card's driver status and resource conflicts?
- Device Manager (Correct answer)
- System Monitor
- Dr. Watson
- DirectX Diagnostic Tool
Correct answer: Device Manager
Device Manager shows driver status, resource assignments, and conflict warnings for all installed hardware including AGP cards.
Question 2: A small business asks you to set up file sharing so three Windows 98 PCs can share a single printer. What networking model does Windows 98 natively support for this scenario without a dedicated server?
- Client/Server
- Peer-to-peer (Correct answer)
- Token Ring
- Domain-based
Correct answer: Peer-to-peer
Windows 98 supports peer-to-peer networking, allowing workstations to share resources directly without a dedicated server.
Question 3: After installing a new sound card, Windows 98 boots to a black screen. You boot to Safe Mode and the display works. What is the most likely cause?
- The sound card corrupted the MBR
- An IRQ conflict between the sound card and video card (Correct answer)
- Safe Mode disables the CPU cache
- The sound card requires a different file system
Correct answer: An IRQ conflict between the sound card and video card
Safe Mode loads minimal drivers and often bypasses IRQ conflicts, so a conflict between newly added hardware and existing devices is the likely culprit.
Question 4: A technician needs to recover a deleted file on Windows 98 that was removed from the Recycle Bin. The disk has not been written to since deletion. What is the best first step?
- Reinstall Windows 98
- Run FDISK to recover partition data
- Use a third-party undelete utility immediately (Correct answer)
- Run ScanDisk to rebuild the FAT
Correct answer: Use a third-party undelete utility immediately
A third-party undelete tool can recover FAT-based file data as long as the sectors haven't been overwritten since deletion.
Question 5: A Windows 98 computer cannot connect to the internet after a browser toolbar install. PING to 8.8.8.8 fails but PING to the local gateway succeeds. What should you check first?
- The DNS server settings (Correct answer)
- The physical network cable
- The monitor resolution
- The Windows 98 version number
Correct answer: The DNS server settings
Since local network connectivity works but internet routing fails, the toolbar may have corrupted DNS settings preventing name and IP resolution beyond the LAN.
Question 6: You are troubleshooting a Windows 98 machine that takes 5 minutes to boot. Task Manager shows 47 programs in the startup group. Which utility is best for selectively disabling startup items without deleting them?
- REGEDIT
- MSCONFIG (Correct answer)
- DEFRAG
- SCANDISK
Correct answer: MSCONFIG
MSCONFIG (System Configuration Utility) allows you to selectively enable or disable startup programs and services without permanently removing them.
Question 7: A user reports that their Windows 98 PC produces a blue screen with 'EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED' only when printing. The printer works on another PC. What Windows 98 feature logs this error for later analysis?
- Event Viewer
- Dr. Watson (Correct answer)
- System Monitor
- Net Watcher
Correct answer: Dr. Watson
Dr. Watson intercepts fatal errors and writes a crash log (drwatson.log) with details about the state of the system at the time of the exception.
Microsoft Windows 98 Case Studies & Practical Application 2
A user's Windows 98 PC freezes randomly during gaming.
After checking temperatures and RAM, you suspect the AGP graphics card.
Which Windows 98 tool would you use to verify the card's driver status and resource conflicts?