I get the normal startup screen, and then I get windows me welcome screen, then my choice of startups (i.e. normal, bootlog; safe, command prompt only). Does not matter what I choose, or what I load or do not, the next screen is the blue screen with the above error - then "press any key", then
"Windows Protection Error"
You need to restart your computer.
System halted."

It maybe a driver problem like i stated at the beginning of my message...Remove any networking and other drivers from windows and reboot, this will reload the drivers, if one is corrupt the refresh will normally sort out the problem

Have you tried step by step confermation? Don't load any thing say no to the lot and see if you get any joy with your system booting to the desktop.

If you can then go to system information and run the system config utility. You will have 2 main files...System.ini and win.ini...

Uncheck all these in the main box and then click on apply...
Go to run and click on msconfig. In the "startup" tab un-check all that is checked. Then click apply and restart the system...

Does this work for you...if so then check one box at a time in msconfig only...and reboot each time if you get a blue screen with the exception then you know that by checking that one box it caused the exception to interupt the boot sequence. Locate the program and remove it from add and remove programs. Reboot the pc and check all that was in msconfig and the system config utility.

You may find that the problem is within the system config utility and not in msconfig startup... Its a point of trial and error at the moment

If this does not work then you will have to try to re-install windows with the hope of over-writing the corrupt file... Use only the origional disk you had that was used to install windows 98SE.

Jase