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WIN95b registry problem

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5 replies

by blueknight

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A user has a PC w/Win95b installed. Recently she has been having problems with the registry after a failed attempt to install a Logitech Cordless Mouse. She has run RegClean but it hangs up at "Scanning Type Library Identifiers." Other times during the course of operation she'll get a "Windows encountered a problem with your registry" message. I went to scan the machine for viruses but got the message "Unable to access common libraries" when VirusScan started.

I'm not certain if there is a current enough backup of the registry to revert to. Is there a way I can manually check the registry and correct it so that this problem can be resolved? I don't want to have to rebuild the machine -- too much software to load... user is also extremely picky about desktop appearance etc.

Machine is a PC clone w/Pentium 166MMX CPU, 32M RAM with Win95b.

5 replies

by earnest

Try running from a command prompt at boot before Win98Blue Screen, Scanreg /fix.
Scandisk might help also as it can rebuild corrupted files.

Bo

by leaslynn

The easy answer: Boot to command prompt.
cd windows directory
attrib -r -s -h *.dat
copy system.dat system.old
copy user.dat user.old
copy system.da0 system.dat
copy user.da0 user.dat
attrib +r +s +h *.dat

That takes your previous Win 95 registry backup and saves it as the current registry. Unfortunately, the *.da0 file dates from the last successful boot, so this may not solve your problem.

The hard answer:
Export the entire registry from a Win95b machine.
Install the user's Logitech mouse.
Export the entire registry again.
Use a file comparison program or even the clunky win fc utility to see what registry keys the mouse installation created.
Delete those keys in the user's machine.

The medium answer:
To avoid doing the above, try editing the *.inf files that came with the user's software. A well-written inf file should tell you what dll's and registry keys are added by an install.

Hope this helps.

by blueknight

Importing the registry from another machine would require too much work editing it to get it to match the hardware/software configuration of this machine. The Logitech install didn't proceed far enough to begin modifying the registry since the mouse was not active (machine was not sensing it).

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