Mac OS 9.1 Finder Quits a lot

[ApeintheShell]

My brother has an iBook 500 with Mac OS 9.1 / 10.1
But he cannot find start-up disk control panel and the extensions folder is messed up.
Also when he has left AOL or Internet Explorer on for a while the finder quits.
Is there a disk utility he should be loading that will improve performance?

[Cheryl]

Wow, sounds like your brother's machine had gremlins attack it.

First, How much memory does he have installed? This may be an important factor. You can find this under the Apple Menu>About this Mac.

Next, he should find the Control Panels under the Apple Menu> Control Panels. He may have to move the arrow of the mouse down towards the bottom of the screen to see the remaining names. That list is in Alpha order.
Or open the hard drive>System Folder - with the 9 on it (Mac os 9) or if he is working in OS 9, the folder with the blue Mac face on it. Now locate the Control Panels folder and open it. Startup disk should be there.
to find things easier, open the folder, then go to the view menu and select by list.

How do you know the extension folder is messed up? To check out what extensions are on or off, go to the Apple Menu>Control Panels>Extension Manager. The files with the x in the box means they are on and active. To change that, just click on the box to make the X appear or disappear. When you make any changes, you must click on restart to make the changes active.

[garmp]

I would first rebuild the desktop, either by using TechTool or holding down the command (apple key) and the option key while starting. Then run Norton, Optimize (or defrag) and Disk Doctor.
If the problem persists I would examine the extensions. Divide and conquer. Turn half of your ext.'s, that are on, off. try it. If it does the same thing turn the off ones on and the on ones off. Try it. If it dosen't do it, the problem is in the half turned off. Turn half of these on and try it. Keep dividing and trying until you find the sulprit. It can be quite involved and time consuming but it works.

Good luck

garmp

[ApeintheShell]

Thanks for the refresher course.
I used to have 8.6, 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2 on my machine so i had a good idea of how the system worked. But i've been using OS X exclusively that i've forgotten about all of this.
I gave him your advice when he went to work this morning, so hopefully he'll have it figured out. I'll let ya know how it went.