Ireland -

If you're noting sluggish operation in Win98 there are two places to do cleanups.

Go to START - PROGRAMS - ACCESSORIES - SYSTEM TOOLS and click on DISK CLEANUP. It will ask which drive to clean, and you pick the one where all your system stuff is installed - usually C:\. If will then search out all the trash that's accumulated - you accept, and it cleans it up. This method will not generally remove cookies, but get most other stuff.

Assuming that you are using Internet Explorer, Click Tools, then Internet Options. There you can delete Temporary Internet files (good idea usually) and/or Cookies (depends on whether you want to log back in everywhere) and Clear History (the list of sites you've been to recently).

Note that "delete cookies" in IE doesn't give you an easy way to choose which ones to delete, and may or may not delete "current" ones.
Both methods clear pretty much the same stuff, but depending on your surfing style, one may work better than the other - but it's pretty quick just to do both.

If you want to clear some cookies but keep some others, you can go to C:\Windows\Cookies and delete any you don't want to keep. The general rule is "if you didn't log in to get them they're junk." Just be careful to keep your mudcat cookie(s) and your bank account.

Later op systems (Win2K and XP esp) put a separate cookie folder under each username in "Documents and Settings;" so you do the same things but may have to go more than one place to delete individual junk items.

There is no reason to "boot to DOS" ever in a Windows system that is working properly, and there are no hidden files that you can't find if you know how and have a reason for needing them. The only reason for "hidden" stuff in Windows is because it would clutter up things so much you'd never get any work done if everything was displayed, and because it helps prevent inadvertent screwups that would trash your system.

John