Morrowind, blast from the past, yeah Options

[unitself]

Have any of you played and/or finished Morrowind?
I bought it years ago, never got very far, got frustrated and put it away. Well, I took it out over the weekend and made a new character and started over. I am only a few hours into it so I have only completed a few Fighter's Guild quests. I am on "Find me a Code Book" quest for them right now.
Basically, does anyone have any pointers?
1) Is there a good way to spend money on weapons and armour? Does a weapon type have an advantage over another?
2) Is there a way that I can find out what herbs and animal parts do what? For example - What is Rat Meat useful for or what does Moon Sugar do? And how does my character find out?
3) Is it better do join a guild and do all of their quests, then join another guild and then do all of thier quests, repeat, repeat... or roam around and pick up quests along my travels? I am curious because during my last game, I FREQUENTLY got caught by much stronger opponents when I just roamed the roads.

Anyways... any tips?

[unitself]

Last night, I was "trying" to play Morrowind and the @#$%ing game froze on at least 4 times. I have had it freeze before, but it was never really that bad and I have learned to save VERY often because of it. Last night's rash of crashes was just too much for me to bear though. The part that really pissed me off was the fact that I am looking for this person who I cannot find at all. I have searched everywhere where she is supposed to be. Well, everywhere except for in the sewers... but when I go down there I get killed. So, if she's down there... she's S.O.L. :D
I hate to cheat in video games, but with all of this game crashing crap and the fact that I can't find this lady I don't know if I can even play the game anymore. So, I am going to cheat and read where she is located and maybe I can get past this B.S.

Anyone else have this freezing problem?