photoshop 7 in windows 98 problem

Hi everyone,
i experienced a problem in ps7. I started to make a new file but it took me atleast 20 secs. But when i open an any old file file whether big or small it opens faster. Also when i try to use layer effects such as drop shadow or bevel it took me almost a min.This doesnt happened before in my computer.I upgraded my memory from 128 to 384 but still it doesnt work properly. I used scandisk, disk defragmenter, changed the preference setting ex. plugin/scratchdisk, memory and image cache, used antivirus and even uninstalling and reinstalling ps7, i also removed other program. My computer is pentium III, 800mhz, 384ram, 40gb hard disk.Only ps7 performs improperly in my computer. Im just wonderin why this happens because i know ihave enough memory and hard disk and this thing doesnt happened before.This ps7 performance in my pc is very slow and doesnt have any message appears that there are troubles in my program. Your help is very much appreciated. thanks in advance
Sagittarius

I'll start off by saying that Windows 98 isn't a good/stable system to run a program like Photoshop in. I suggest you use windows 2000 or XP.

The problem with windows, is that every 6 months to a year, you need to reinstall the OS in order to recover speed. After a while, the windows registry gets way too bulky and messed up with all the various things that install to it over time. Windows 98 also does best with as few programs installed as possible. Uninstall everything you don't use.

After that, you may want to run a program that cleans out your registry like jv16 PowerTools, which you can find at the following URL.

http://www.vtoy.fi/jv16/shtml/jv16powertools.shtml

This will get rid of all the leftover bits of information that gets stuck in your registry, and should significantly improve the performance of your computer.

While a full reinstall of Windows is recommended by me, or even better, a switch to Windows 2000 or XP, cleaning out unused software + cleaning your registry will go a long way to help.

If Photoshop 7 is truly the only program that doesn't operate well within your windows 98, then it could be the program at fault. You can go to adobe's website and get the 7.01 update for PS7 and see if that helps.

Everything mrbogus said is valid, but I've used photoshop on Win2k and 98 and I can say that I think it's something to do with an incompatibility with Win98.

Photoshop 6 works fine for me on Win98, but then I installed PhotoShop 7 it runs really slowly. It didn't matter if I'd just done a fresh install of Win98, PS7 still ran really slowly.

Under Win2K, PhotoShop 6 & 7 both run at that same speed (I think), I use both and have no problems.

try allowing photoshop to use more of your memory, it might be set at a low amount such as only 20mb.
to do so click preferences>>memory and something or other.

If that doesn't work, i suggest an upgrade....I'm running on a slow computer but Photoshop runs fine.
I'm only running on a 850mz Celeron 256mb ram 120gb hd.

I am running windows 98 and I recently had the same exact problem but the problem is not consitent. Some times it happens and some times it doesnt. For some odd reason, I find that it doesn't happen when I'm connected to the internet!

you may want to run a program that cleans out your registry like jv16 PowerTools, which you can find at the following URL.

http://www.vtoy.fi/jv16/shtml/jv16powertools.shtml

I tried this program out and it is great! I would recommend it for sure....
Thanks MRBogus =)