Uninstall and start again

[astondog]

I am still running Windows 98SE on an old computer (with AOL broadband which is slower than dial-up) and I have done every AOL auto repair going.
I have decided to uninstall everything and start from scratch, can anyone tell me if;
A, It will help
B, What I will lose
C, If I back up what I want on floppy I will be ok to reinstall what's on them.
If you can help me please do so in easy to understand instructions cos I am operating on half a brain cell at the moment.
Thank you astondog

[vehelpfulguy]

Dont bother reinstalling 98SE.

Spend a couple of hundred pounds on a new system unit (with XP not Vista) and use your existing screen, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc.

EVERYTHING on the new system unit will be faster than your existing PC, so using your PC will start to become a pleasure again.

[fo3nix]

A. It may help. It'll certainly perform faster initially because it's a new start (I assume you mean 'format the computer' as opposed to just uninstalling stuff one by one.)
B. If you format the computer, you lose everything. Windows itself, programs, documents, games, music, the lot. Make sure you have the windows cd before doing anything though, to reinstall.
C. back up all your personal files you want to keep (documents etc.), but not onto floppy. First, they probably will span many disks, and secondly, floppy disks are a terrible format and get corrupted very very easily. They aren't a backup medium.

Finally, if you can, change to windows 2000, or just get a new computer.

[p19log]

use a memory stick, as they are much faster and more reliable.

[yellowjohn]

had the same prob with aol and what speeded it up for me was by setting my fire wall to deny a programme access to the internet that was incorporated with the aol software.
a few years ago but it was called speed optimizer or speed
something. quite strange since it is meant to speed things up,but hey thats ao hell for you.

[astondog]

Thanks for all of your advise, I think I'll have to try a buy another computer, I'll be lookin at ways to do that now as I am no longer working cos I lost part of my leg last year so it may be a catalogue job or completely strip this one down and start replacing things.
Cheers everyone.