REVISITED: my "Unpredictable Safe Mode forced on me at times"

Last year I told here of my problem of being faced with a forced-on-me Safe Mode which occurred only now and then. [The thread I started is still here and is called "Unpredictable Safe Mode forced on me at times ".]

As I recall, I was advised in this forum to wipe my HDD and start all over again, installing probably my original Win98FE and then the Win98SE upgrade disc I had. Well I really didn't want to do that. So I continued to have the Safe Mode forced on me at times at startup. But then, one day (a little over 1 month ago) I decided to uninstall Zone Alarm which no longer had any support or upgrades for Win98/SE. When I got rid of Zone Alarm, my Safe Mode problem ended! I'm certain that the problem occurred because of Zone Alarm. Now I use another freeware firewall and I continue to have no Safe Modes forced on me!

 

Why do you ask?

Steve, most of the time it shuts down properly but rather rarely it doesn't shut down in the normal way-- the computer just stays on while a certain screen showing some Windows logo or words is present. At those uncommon, rarer times, I have to push the power button on my older IBM tower PC to turn it off. Then, the next time I turn it on, I of course have the DOS type screen and a scan running (because it says the system was improperly shut down the last time). After the scan is done I have my usual, normal Windows.

Why did you ask your question?

 

Steve, I'm still wondering

Well the other day, the computer didn't shut down properly. I was forced to push the power button on the computer, something I don't have to do when things go well.

And today (which is the first boot *after* that bad shutdown of a few days ago) I was forced into Safe Mode. I haven't had this problem for some time and assumed it was absent because I got rid of Zone Alarm, but now wonder if the once-in-a-while shutdown problem is related to the once-in-a-while forced Safe Mode. Is it? What can be done to stop both failed shutdown and subsequent forced Safe Mode?

[My OS is a modified, IE-free Win98SE upgraded from my former, modified, IE-free Win98FE.]