Greetings Bill and list--

Some of this thread has continued off-list, but Bill's comments are helpful with respect to clarification of DOS (or command prompt) conventions. Thank you Bill. During the course of several posts (in one of which it was not clear whether Mr. Warren's command prompt was C:\> Windows or just C:\>) we got Mr. Warren to 'drill down' to the COMMAND folder within the Windows folder--at least we tried to (my mistake on the cd.. command when I should have suggested cd \ to change directory to the root). Apparently, when Mr. Warren entered "cd command" at the C:\>Windows prompt, he received the 'bad command' or 'invalid directory' response. For users of Windows 9x, this is, of course "a bad thing". Many (most?) DOS environment commands are housed in this folder, including SCANREG.EXE. Believing that it is possible that some 'rogue program' or mistaken deletion could have removed or relocated this folder, I zipped a copy of C:\>Windows\Command and its contents to an archive, and attempted t
o send it to Mr. Warren as an attachment (not a large one at 1.5MB). To date, he has been unable to receive it, due to some error (as he reported to me) with his ISP/Client. Our efforts continue. Of note to Win9x users, there are 2 versions of SCANREG included with Windows; one is for DOS, one runs with Windows startup, and probably should not be disabled with msconfig. This version is scanregw, and it checks and backs up the registry. This was one of the improvements of Windows 98 over Windows 95; it would make a second copy of the registry (or up to 5 registry backups, if the scanreg.ini file was appropriately edited--it could make more, but only 5 could be displayed, if my memory serves, when a registry restore was initiated), in case the registry had to be restored. 

My hope is that Mr. Warren has a computer available where he can unzip the archive--perhaps in safe mode on the troublesome computer. If he is able to do this, he may be able to restore the COMMAND folder to its correct location, which will allow him to run the DOS scanreg executable.

Paul A. Shippert
Library Media Specialist
Margaret Brent Middle School
-----------------------------------
and I'm hovering like a fly
waiting for the windshield on the 
freeway." Genesis
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 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Bill Cohane <[log in to unmask]>
> At 23:39 05/20/08, Jeffrey Warren wrote:
> >Hello Paul:
> >
> >Thank You For Your Prompt Attention To My URGENT REQUEST.  It is 
> >greatly appreciated.  However, once again I've followed your 
> >instrctions to the letter to no avail. Here is a outline of my attempt:
> >
> >*Entered Opt. 5 (Command prompt only)
> >*C:\> displayed
> >*Entered cd..
> >*Invalid directory displayed
> >*screen returned to C:\> display again
> >*Entered cd windows
> >*C:\Windows> displayed
> >*entered SCANREG
> >*Bad command or file name displayed
> >*screen return to C:\Windows>
> >
> >I will await for your next instructions.
> >
> >Thank You Again Paul, Jeffrey Warren.
> 
> Hi Jeffrey
> 
> [I'm not Paul, but I'll try to help.]
> 
> After choosing option 5, you ended up with C:\> displayed.
> This meant you were running in DOS Mode, logged into
> the root directory of the C: drive. (">" is the symbol
> for the cursor.)
> 
> Commands you then entered:
> 
> "CD.."
> 
> This command (CD followed by the two dots) drops you down
> one level in directory structure. But you were at the bottom
> level already (\ is the root or bottom of a drive's
> directory tree).
> 
> "CD Windows" (CD = Ch Dir = Change Directory) moves you
> into (logs you into) the "Windows" directory. Basically,
> you did a "CD C:\Windows" where the C: drive was understood.
> 
> "SCANREG" means you tried to run a program named SCANREG.
> But you didn't specify a directory for SCANREG, so it was
> understood that SCANREG must be in the same directory you
> were logged into. (But SCANREG isn't in the Windows
> directory. If it were, it would have tried to run.)
> 
> So, instead of just SCANREG, you need to type in a command
> like
> 
> C:\(path}\SCANREG
> 
> where "{path}" indicates the particular directory structure
> for SCANREG. It may be one folder name or several in a row
> separated by back slashes.
> 
> This is the McAfee utility SCANREG, right? You need to
> replace "{path}" above with the actual directory structure.
> Someone will have to tell you this because I don't know it.
> 
> So again, you want to enter a command like
> 
> C:\MCAFEE\SCANREG
> 
> Note that where I wrote MCAFEE for the path, it might
> actually be something like C:\MCAFEE\WHATEVER\SCANREG or
> C:\MCAFEE\WHATEVER\DEEPER\SCANREG or even something
> without the word MCAFEE in it at all.
> 
> Even if you can get SCANREG to run, it might not work
> properly or at all, and it might repeat its attempt to
> run the next time you boot. (You might have to edit the
> autoexec.bat and/or config.sys file(s) to remove
> commands that try to run SCANREG. See below where I
> mention MSCONFIG. Autoexec.bat and Config.sys are text
> files that you can edit with a Windows or DOS text editor
> program. And there are other ways Windows might try
> to run something like SCANREG at boot.)
> 
> Another thing to try would be to boot to SAFE MODE.
> (It's one of the options in the boot menu, one of the
> other choices besides DOS Mode.)
> 
> Safe Mode should bypass any attempt by Windows to
> automatically run non-essential programs at startup.
> For example SCANREG. If you can boot into Safe Mode,
> you can manually run the utility Msconfig.exe which
> is in your Windows folder. (When your desktop shows up,
> click the Start button, then Run, then type msconfig
> into Run's little "Open" window. Or you could type
> msconfig.exe or even C:\Windows\msconfig.exe into that
> window.)
> 
> When MSCONFIG opens, disable anything that looks like
> SCANREG or MCAFEE. Go through everything (every TAB at
> the top, and every choice under each of these TABs) if
> you have to until you can reboot into regular windows.
> 
> MSCONFIG will not let you disable anything that is
> essential for Windows to work. You can run MSCONFIG
> later (when things are working again) and re-enable
> things one by one.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> Regards,
> Bill  
> 
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>                      support at our newest website:
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