Help?

[asheris]

Right, as much as I hate it I'm stuck using Win98 for the time being. (I'd rather have a Mac.)

Last week Win98 died, and I ended up having to reinstall over the top. It left all the other programs intact- except for the fact that they won't run as Win98 doesn't know they're there.

Is there a way to get those programs recognized and working again, short of having to reinstall everything? I'd rather not have to spend another day just reinstalling software that is already on here. Not to mention I'm not sure where all the CD's are, having done two computer location moves in the last five months!

Any help greatly appreciated!

Comments

[keith-london.livejournal.com]

I sympathise! I am not a computer expert at all. Your problem must be one that many have suffered. The closest I got to this was when I spilt water on my laptop. I think we went through a complete re-install, and I just had to re-install applications I needed.

I wondered about how you could try getting Win 98 to recognise your existing applications. Here are my ideas:

- "Config.sys" file - I wonder if your old "config.sys" is still around? If not could this be modified to take into account all your applications?
- What about the " Ultimate Boot Disk (http://www.startdisk.com/Web2/ubd/ubd.htm)"? (Maybe it's too late to use if you have done a "clean reboot")
- or... could you treat your situation as a "migrate existing applications or settings from your current version of Windows" problems, and upgrade with the "enemy" Windows XP so that it can retrieve your old settings? {I believe there's a feature in WinXP install that allows this - According to John Thompson (http://www.nzpca.org.nz/megabyte/2001/11/art03.htm), "The XP installation process automatically backs up your existing OS, making it very easy to revert back to your old operating system"

I don't have the answers yet ... working on it..

[meta.livejournal.com]

If it can't find the programs, that suggests that you lost the contents of the registry some time during the corruption or re-installation. To check, you could go into the add/remove programs control panel, and see if any of the extra software is listed. If it's not, the registry is corrupt or wiped, and you're screwed--you'll have to reinstall every piece of software.

You can try running the .EXE files directly, restoring the shortcuts to them in the start menu. Some applications that don't rely on the registry will still work.

The registry was the single worst thing Microsoft did between Windows 3.11 and Windows 95. It introduced a single point of failure into the OS.