Direct X 8.1 problems

[spike232]

I downloaded Direct X 8.1 on my Windows 98SE system, and now I'm having problems. I keep getting error messages, the games that I used to play aren't working now, and I can't install new games or software onto my computer. I tried downloading Direct X 8 and install that but it will not overwrite 8.1. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appriciated!

Spike

 

[greg013]

Have you tried uninstalling from Control Panel, Add/Remove Software? Remove the DirecX 8.1 you recently installed.

 

[thatrenowned]

The only way to get rid of Direct X is to reinstall your OS. The only suggestions I can think of to sort this other than the above is to:

1) Reinstall all drivers (graphics, sound etc)
2) Reinstall Direct X 8.1
3) Make sure you haev the most up-to-date drivers (the ones which you have may not be Direct X 8.1 compatible).

Let me know if this helps.

 

[dakota81]

Curious, which games are not accepting DirectX 8.1?

 

[spike232]

The games that I was using was SimCity 3000, and most notably that needed the updated DirectX 8.1 was Everquest, and I've been searching for an answer for months. I've been told it's in my BIOS, another person said that it was in my hardware, in my chipset, in my memory, in registry, so on, and so forth. Everything that has been suggested I've done, and I'm about to throw this computer out the window and buy another one!

Spike

 

[dakota81]

Actually I'm reading your initial problem a little closer, and I do not think it's an incompatibility issue between the games and DirectX.

First thing to do is grab a virus scan software, I recommend the free DOS version of F-Protect at

http://www.f-prot.com

- I had a virus not too long ago which embedded itself into every .exe file on my harddrive. Every file still worked like normal - every file except WinZip self-extracting archives were screwed up. Just check this out first.


If no viruses; with Windows not functioning as you describe, about the only thing you can do is reinstall the operating system. You can seriously spend an entire day testing out new things to try and get Windows to work and end up nowhere.

Win98 needs to be reinstalled periodically anyways, I actually do this like twice a year, even if I'm not experiencing any troubles. Download any drivers you need to set up your computer, then boot from a floppy disk and use the deltree command on the windows directory, then reinstall Windows.