ChrisK wrote on 2024-09-17, 14:12:

Yes but what exactly does it do? I've tried "scanreg /fix" but that didn't really help. After the next reboot there was again a […]
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Putas wrote on 2024-09-17, 12:04:

ChrisK wrote on 2024-09-17, 07:59:

By extracting system.dat and user.dat from a .cab from before when the system got into a bad state and putting them into C:\Windows\ (overwriting the existing files) can bring the system back to life.

Whence why Scanreg exists.

Yes but what exactly does it do?
I've tried "scanreg /fix" but that didn't really help. After the next reboot there was again a registry error reported by windows.
Does it restore those older file revisions and if so which revision will it use? Or does it just "repair" the registry?

Makes daily backups it can restore from.

ChrisK wrote on 2024-09-17, 07:59:

Haha, that's just what I was remembering when thinking about that all at bit more. I also regularly reinstalled Win98 but I can' […]
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soggi wrote on 2024-09-16, 22:33:

Sorry, forgot to answer...

I also had the "usual Win98 related trouble" (which ChrisK mentioned) in mind. Nice to hear it exactly was this. Back in the days I always reinstalled Win98(SE) when I changed the video card and I did it anyway every few months at least to have a clean, fast system.

Haha, that's just what I was remembering when thinking about that all at bit more.
I also regularly reinstalled Win98 but I can't recall the reasons for that any more. Since I didn't change hardware components that often this can't have been the reason.
Nevertheless it was a very common process for me, just a matter of format C: and starting setup.

Nowadays this isn't my preferred approach because of having installed many other things I don't want to reinstall each time. And since I discovered you could just reinstall Win98 over an existing installation reverting all drivers but keeping other software this is my preferred way to go. But sometimes even that doesn't work.
But there's another way to set Windows back to a working state:
Windows creates backups of its system files under C:\Windows\Sysbackup\rb00x.cab
Those .cab files are archives with system.dat, user.dat, system.ini, win.ini.
By extracting system.dat and user.dat from a .cab from before when the system got into a bad state and putting them into C:\Windows\ (overwriting the existing files) can bring the system back to life.
At least it seems this saved me from doing a complete reinstall for now.

Thanks for the tip! I also found the scanreg /fix approach because I had an issue with the network card (as it turned out). Once I found peace with the idea that I needed to wipe everything to make it work I did it like 10 times probably before I found the combination of hardware and software that worked 😀 My network card RTL 8110, caused the system to hang on shut down/restart. I spent hours looking for a solution before I actually discovered that it was caused by the network card (adding/removing components one by one). I used scanreg /fix, to roll back to the original Windows state after the next unsuccessful hardware installation (GPU, Network, Sound).
Now do the following:
1. msconfig >backup
2. regedit > registry export
3. scanreg /fix > to roll back, if necessary

ChrisK wrote on 2024-09-17, 07:59:

Haha, that's just what I was remembering when thinking about that all at bit more. I also regularly reinstalled Win98 but I can' […]
Show full quote

Haha, that's just what I was remembering when thinking about that all at bit more.
I also regularly reinstalled Win98 but I can't recall the reasons for that any more. Since I didn't change hardware components that often this can't have been the reason.
Nevertheless it was a very common process for me, just a matter of format C: and starting setup.

Nowadays this isn't my preferred approach because of having installed many other things I don't want to reinstall each time. And since I discovered you could just reinstall Win98 over an existing installation reverting all drivers but keeping other software this is my preferred way to go. But sometimes even that doesn't work.
But there's another way to set Windows back to a working state:
Windows creates backups of its system files under C:\Windows\Sysbackup\rb00x.cab
Those .cab files are archives with system.dat, user.dat, system.ini, win.ini.
By extracting system.dat and user.dat from a .cab from before when the system got into a bad state and putting them into C:\Windows\ (overwriting the existing files) can bring the system back to life.
At least it seems this saved me from doing a complete reinstall for now.

I reinstalled Win98(SE) so often these days that I still know the product key by heart, despite the last installation I did was more then ten ago (can't remember exactly). New hardware wasn't the main reason, but a new video card was the best hardware reason to get a new install (except motherboard, which really requires a new Win98(SE) installation to have a stable and fast system in very most cases). Sometimes I even reinstalled Win98(SE) shortly after installing it, because there was some error in the installation process or something went wrong with Windows Update...oh man, sometimes could have byte into the keyboard or ten keyboards.

Over the years I refined my strategy of how to reinstall... Very early I decided to have at least two partitions in any case, so it was no problem to save personal data and even used programs and stuff. Then I created a folder with all the latest drivers I need for a reinstall (this is a reason why latest drivers are available on my website). Later I copied the whole Win98SE CD to a folder on D:/ (no CD image, just a copy of the files) because installing from the HDD is MUCH faster than installing from CD.

The main reason for reinstalling Win98(SE) was that you could reach a point when some things of the actual installation didn't work as intended and before you would fiddle around and pseudo-fix it, you just made a clean installation which was much faster and you had a clean system for sure (think of registry, system files, temp files and stuff). BTW there is also a point where you ran out of GDI ressources - I reached it multiple times a day in the mid 2000s with AMD A64 / ATI Radeon 9700 / 512 MB RAM when Win98SE still was my daily driver and I was hardcore surfing with Firefox (multiple tabs) and also used other programs. This was where Win98SE came to it's end, unfortunately.

After switching to WinXP as main OS, it wasn't necessary anymore to do it that often and when you get older you get lazier so you try to avoid a reinstallation as long as possible - the behavior you extremely complained about when you were a teen or in your twenties.

As a conclusion I would always recommend a new and clean install of Win9x if you have driver or other problems...and then hope (and maybe pray) that everything runs quite well.

kind regards
soggi

soggi wrote on 2024-09-17, 21:56:

... and when you get older you get lazier so you try to avoid a reinstallation as long as possible - the behavior you extremely complained about when you were a teen or in your twenties.

😁 😁 😁 That's so true!

The strategy with another partition/drive for personal data I also adopted in the 98 days, as a result of frequent reinstallations, and am still using it up to this day.
It's only the possibility of using the installation files directly from HDD rather than CD that I learned just in recent times. It truely makes the process so much faster.

BTW: Thumbs up for your website! I've visited it quite often in recent years. Very good collection of information, drivers, patches, ... . Thanks for collecting & providing this all!

Oh guys, thank you for keeping this "topic" alive, and thank you to the entire community!
I mean, I get this retro wave from time to time when I begin to fiddle around with old hardware, install, test, and forget (until the next time). It just feels so comfortable at times but, like everything else, it goes away until it goes back again 😁

I do have a separate partition for all the drivers and such, but only this time that I tried installing from a hard drive because my current PC installation simply would not launch from a CD (don't know why). It's a multiboot CD with Win98, 2000, and XP which I used for years, but it doesn't work on this PC.
This time around I'm also cleaning up my closet and putting up for sale some of the 3Dfx cards that have, maybe something else which I don't use. And I also want to finish my "golden" build PC at some point for which I don't have all the pieces yet (I do have a Slot A MB, Slot A Athlon CPU golden orb, V2 SLI and a 2d/3d GPU). Need to find the case, ram, PSU, but it's another story ))

ChrisK wrote on 2024-09-18, 07:49:

BTW: Thumbs up for your website! I've visited it quite often in recent years. Very good collection of information, drivers, patches, ... . Thanks for collecting & providing this all!

Thank you! I'm still working on the latest update...it takes so long... 😒

MaDGyrus wrote on 2024-09-18, 13:15:

I do have a separate partition for all the drivers and such, but only this time that I tried installing from a hard drive because my current PC installation simply would not launch from a CD (don't know why). It's a multiboot CD with Win98, 2000, and XP which I used for years, but it doesn't work on this PC.

I never used such multi boot/installation CDs/DVDs because I didn't really trust them f.e. - I always used the original media or 1:1 copies of them.

kind regards
soggi