Free browser-based PC checks (for viruses, bandwidth, etc..)

I've always had pretty good luck with memory from Crucial, and from Mushkin; both are usually cheaper than straight from a computer manufacturer, but memory is cheap anyway nowadays. A PII machine running Win 9X prolly won't benefit from any more than 384Mb of memory; 9X really doesn't know how to handle more than that. Just make sure you get the right memory cards for your machine; the manufacturer's website will tell you what you need.

A 9Gig Hard drive?!? Well, if that's plenty for you, then, cool. I'd feel like I was trapped in an airliner's washroom if I had that little, but what works is fine. for the one that works with it.

I favor Hard Drives from Seagate and Maxtor, Western Digital a little less so, but the6ty're all fine. A storage upgrade wouldn't hurt you a bit, but if you don't need it, don't do it. I dunnp if it makes much sense to partition a 9Gig drive, but PArtition Commander is my partion utility of choice.

There are others, but it works well, has a good interface, and I'm used to it. I've heard mixed results from folks migrating PII machines from Win9X to XP, but I think mostly because the folks didn't do the install properly. There could be some driver issues, too, particularly if your peripherals are as old as your machine, but XP Updated Drivers for just about everything are available now, and XP has a "Run as" feature which usually accommodated older, otherwise incompatible drivers. If you've got 9X fiully updated and it runs reliably, stick with it if you want to, but I would really recommend either Win 2K or XP. Don't even think about going to Win ME; 2K, XP, or stay where you're at. Be advised though, that Microsoft support for the entire Win 9X family is in its waning days.