Computer whizzes, please help!
 

I use an IBM Thinkpad with Windows 98 and MS Office 97. Every time I go to shut down Excel, I get a BSOD that says, "A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 017F:BFF9DFFF," yadda yadda yadda. I've searched Google to see what I could find, but nothing works so far.

I need Excel to do anything here at work (except surf GC, of course). Anybody know what's up with this?

When was the last time you did a windows reinstall?

MS operating systems, prior to XP and especially 95 and 98 just "go bad" after awhile and get really crashy.

Your best bet is to back everything up and reinstall. Or, if you have the memory, upgrade to XP.

That's a good idea. I know a couple of network administrators who burn and rebuild their machines every six months just to avoid problems. You might want to try every service pack known to Microsoft first though. First run the Windows Update and install everything critical and reccommended then do the Office service packs. You can get to those by going to Help - Office on the Web - United States - Product Downloads. I know the Office Service Packs help if the programs stay open on your computer in processes even when they're supposed to be closed so it might help with this.