I've been told that I need to reinstall win 98 os to fix problems and must make sure that all of the previous os is deleted first. I don't have a clue how to do this. Can anyone help?
What are these problems? Odds are they can be fixed without a format unless you are having general stability problems as well(aside from the normal 9x ones of course)
Personally, I would try installing Win98 straight over the top of your existing installation and then get on the internet and download all of the updates from Microsoft and install them. Not knowing exactly what your problem is, this may fix it. Also, doing it this way avoids the necessity of reinstalling all your other applications; anti-virus, office, myob, whatever, whatever.....
Additionally, this method will keep all your existing application settings, saving possibly days of work.
Now, if this method doesn't cure the problem, then and only then would I consider a complete clean install.
this isn't really true. an over the top installation will overwrite the registry and thus you LOSE any settings that are saved there (which is where microsoft wants all programs to put their settings, the old ini method is depricated). you wont necessarily have to reinstall everything because maybe the author of the program prepared for such an instance where the settings are gone and sometimes you dont even need it but if you do something like this PLAN on having to reinstall software, even if you wind up not having to.