msgsrv32 not responding

dell XPS PII 350 win 98. every so often (once or twice a day) the entire taskbar becomes unresponsive. Checking the tasks reveal that “msgsrv32” is not responding. Re-booting fixes it temporarily. Also to add an additional symptom: While in Windows Explorer, checking the directory on a CD seems OK, until I remove the current CD and replace it with another. The explorer view doesn’t update and still shows the contents of the 1st CD. Selecting the “C:” drive and doing a refresh fixes it forone time only. Aside from replacing the OS with Linux; Any suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks