This is longish and won't interest gurus. So skip it if you're one such.
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I just spotted something that I should have covered when I replied to Frank
about reinstalling Windows 95 and 98. For those who aren't too sure what
such a reinstallation involves, it DOESN'T necessarily mean wiping the hard
drive and starting again from scratch. There are four options - as follows:
1. Reformat the hard drive and start completely from the beginning.
2. Delete the Windows folder ONLY and reinstall Windows.
3. Reinstall Windows OVER THE TOP of the existing installation by doing it
in either DOS or..
4. Windows (I know it sounds somehow contradictory, but it works)
1. Is probably familiar to most people, so I won't go any further here.
2. Needs to done from DOS. In my opinion it's best done with the DELTREE
tool. To set up for this, get yourself a boot floppy disk. There are
several ways to do this, but the easiest way is to start Windows and put a
writeable (close the right-hand shutter) floppy into it's drive, then go
into My Computer and right click the '3 1\2 Floppy A' icon. From the
context menu left click on 'Format'. Put a dot in 'Quick' (or 'Full' if you
want to be more thorough) and check all three of the bottom options. Then
hit 'Start'.
Once the floppy is formatted, rebooting the computer will cause it to start
up in DOS mode, (provided that the BIOS is set to use the floppy as it's
first choice of boot. In most computers, it's already set this way)
However, this boot disk is pretty 'toothless', and it can't do a lot until
you throw in a few more DOS command tools. You can find these in the
C:\Windows\Command folder, together with the DELTREE.EXE
I mentioned earlier.
You can add as many of these as you like, but remember that the floppy will
only hold 1.4 megabytes, so choose carefully. If you use the 'View' item on
the menu and select 'Details', the size of each file can be seen. The
easiest way to copy these to the floppy is to right click each file (once)
and select 'Send To' - Floppy'. Watch for the floppy disk light to turn off
before copying another file.
Now, if you use this boot disk to start the computer, you've got many more
options. To use DELTREE to completely delete the Windows folder, the
command (from the A prompt) is: "deltree c:\windows" (no quote marks, of
course) followed by hitting the Enter key. So you'll see this on screen
before you hit Enter:
A:\>deltree c:\windows (Don't be scared - it will ask if you're sure you
want to do it :--))
This will completely eliminate the Windows folder, and you can then start a
fresh installation of Windows, without distubing any files that were OUTSIDE
the Windows folder to begin with. HOWEVER, the new Windows will NOT know
about any of your previously installed programs, like Photoshop or Word, so
you will need to reinstall these. Also, other stuff like your Dial-Up
connection will need to be set up again.
But it's all good clean fun! <grin>
Back to options 3 and 4 - These are both fairly straightforward, and will
result in very little being changed - which is why neither of them is worth
doing. Oh, I've done it once or twice and it's 'sort-of' cured my problem,
but a proper reinstall is the only way to go.
NOTE: Power users really need to be able to see their files properly. So, go
to My Computer, open C drive and from the View item on the menu bar select
'Folder Options' then View. Put a dot in 'Show All Files' and uncheck 'Hide
File Extensions for Known File Types'. Ok out again.
NOTE 2: For extra control of this unruly OS, go to My Computer, open C
drive and from the View item on the menu bar select 'Folder Options',
Custom, Settings button, then dot the bottom item of all four choices.
NOTE 3: By far the best way to install Windows (any option) is to copy the
Windows CD to a folder on the hard drive and install from there. You can do
this from Windows or from DOS. To do it from DOS is a little trickier than
in Windows, as your CDRom drive will need to be recognised in DOS, so it
needs to include some generic (ones that will work with most CD drives) CD
drivers. This list's own website at http://freepctech.com has such boot
disks. However, you may need to add DELTREE.EXE to their disk.
Also, if you intend the create this storage directory on C drive from DOS,
after you've booted to DOS you'll need to to type, at the A prompt: "md
c:\winstart". This just says: Make a directory on C called Winstart.
Then, after putting the Windows CD into the drive, you type from the A
prompt:
"xcopy32 e:\win98\*.* c:\winstart /s/e" and hit Enter.
This says: Use xcopy32.exe from the floppy to copy only the folder on the CD
called Win98 (which is all that's neccessary), together with every file in
it, to the Winstart folder on the C drive while keeping the directory
structure intact.
This assumes that e is your CD drive - it might be d or f or g, depending on
how many CD drives you have. Also, once the copy is done, and after Windows
has started, you can delete the sub-folders OLS and TOUR (I'm working from
memory here) from the Winstart folder, as they're not needed and just take
up 50Mb of hard drive space. But don't worry about this until Windows is up
and running. Some Windows CD's have a folder called 'Cabs' which contains
all the necessary files, in which case your DOS command will be a little
different.
Ian Porter
Computer Guys Inc.
Arrowtown
New Zealand
[log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian" Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Attn. Frank: Message from PCSOFT
moderator
> Frank, you CAN reinstall while retaining your present configuration -
either
> from DOS, or while in Windows. Only problem is, it won't help much. If
you
> have errors now, you'll probably still have them after the reinstall.
The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering
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with the OpenOffice CD... at a great price!!!
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