95isalive - Windows Repair

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Repairing and Updating Windows and Hardware

This section contains information about repairing Windows and upgrading or installing new hardware. So, we'll start with a tip about installing new hardware and work our way to some "Last Resort" things to try to salvage a crashed system. Like other pages in 95 Is alive, this one will always be open for additions, and suggestions are always welcome.

When troubleshooting problems, keep in mind to try the most simple thing first, such as replacing the CMOS/BIOS battery when the computer doesn't remember device settings or the clock starts to lose time, ( yes there is one on the motherboard, it usually looks like a big watch battery ) and then work towards the more difficult.

PcFire gif. Creator unknown Young people, remember the warning about your Parents' computer!!
( Thank you Cliff )

Image links will open in a new page and the Close Page button will bring you back.

Image	Installing new Hardware Finally got the new Cd-Rom/Burner/Reader Writer or DVD player or the new high speed Modem that does everything but program the VCR and can't wait to get it installed and try it out?? Do yourself and Windows a favor before you install the new device. If you're replacing an older piece of hardware, open Device Manager and remove the old device first. Then shut down and remove the old and install the new device. Windows will have a much easier time detecting your new hardware and installing the proper drivers. Don't worry, if you have to reinstall the old item, Windows will remember it, because to permanently remove an item it has to be removed from Device Manager when in "Safe Mode."
Go get it Image	Find your CD Key with Keyfinder from Magical Jelly Bean Software 03/09/03 Lost your CD key for your Windows disk? This little free utility will dig it out and print it for you. It will run right from the desktop in normal Windows or Safe Mode.
Visit	Invalid System Disk or Invalid Media Type You go to start your computer and it tells you "Invalid System Disk." what it might be telling you is that the Master Boot Record or the system files have become corrupt or lost. To repair it restart the machine with the Startup Disk in the floppy drive. And then at the A:\ prompt type: fdisk /mbr and hit enter to rewrite the master boot record. Then type sys c: and hit enter to restore the system files. If you don't have a Startup Disk, click Visit to go to bootdisk.com and download one.
Image	Make a Startup Disk One of the easiest things to do, and one that a lot of folks ignore, is making a Start Up disk to use when your computer malfunctions and won't load windows. Go to Control Panel, Add Remove Programs and click the Startup Disk tab. It could very well "Save" your computer.
Image	Windows Compression Agent You might find a program named Compression agent in the System section of the Start, Programs, Accessories. Or it might pop up and offer to increase your disk space when the hard drive starts getting full. In my humble opinion DO NOT USE IT, as it is well noted for rendering a system unusable. Just get rid of some junk files instead
Visit Image	System Diagnostics tool Have a system feature that doesn't work? FreshDiagnose from Fresh Devices will show you everything you want to know about how your computer is set up, and will show you where the problem is. It even shows you the settings that you can change with Policy Editor. Requires Windows 95B and above and you have to register by e-mail to download it . Check out the other free tools too.
Visit Image	Disk Operating System or DOS stuff When you've been exploring your computer you may have noticed the windows\command folder and that it contains a lot of files that end in .com or .exe. Most of these are DOS routines that are sometimes used by windows or that can be used at the DOS or Command Prompt level. You can find out what they do by opening a DOS window, typing the name and following it with the /? switch. For a complete run down on DOS commands, click Visit and go to computerhope.com.
Image	Strange music coming from the System Speaker You're working or surfing away and the computer starts playing music from the system speaker inside the box. The computer is playing Beethoven's Fur Elise, and it's trying to tell you the CPU is over heating. This is a little known feature built into Windows, so it's a good idea to leave the system speaker enabled. Double click the speaker Icon and click the advanced tab to enable it.
Go get it Image	Recover or restore deleted files with File Revival Accidentally delete needed files and then empty the Recycle Bin before you realized the mistake. If you haven't run Scandisk or Defrag yet, File Revival from Onlimemedia can restore the file for you. You can even download a trial version and run it to see if the files are available to be recovered. However you must register it ( pay for it ) to actually recover the files. Click Image to see the difference in what Windows sees and what you see with File Revival.
Image Text	Recover from a failed program installation Installed a new program and the computer hangs up and fails to restart. Restart it in a DOS, also called command prompt mode and use the DOS level delete or deltree command to hopefully delete the corrupt files and restart windows. The image shows Windows DOS but the commands will work in the basic DOS mode. Clicking Text will open a printable page of instructions. Be very careful with this one.
Image	The Desktop or Explorer folders show wrong or corrupt Icons Windows maintains a list of Icons it uses in a folder named ShellIconCache. Sometimes Windows forgets to remove those no longer used, or the file gets contaminated and your Desktop or Explorer Icons are all messed up. To fix it, find and delete the folder and restart the computer. Windows will build a new clean one on boot up. You'll be surprised how much smaller the new one is. ( The new one may not show until the second time you restart. )
Images	Keep your important info in a Notepad text file you can read and edit with DOS Open Notepad and make a record of important things you might need to repair your computer, such as the product key, registry import/export commands etc. If your machine crashes you can open and read the file using the Edit command in DOS. You can also edit your config.sys, autoexec.bat, and WIN.ini and SYSTEM.ini files in DOS using the Edit command.
Go get it	CD-ROM Extra files Have you recently installed or reinstalled using a set of Floppy disks and discovered a whole lot of things missing from Windows. Thanks to the folks at Frostedside.com for sending an e-mail with the link to the Microsoft page where you can download the files that are on the CD but not included with the floppies. There's a whole list of utilities there, so check it out.
Image	Windows didn't Autodetect my new Hardware This happens occasionally, so before you call tech support for the new "goodie" try this. Go to Control Panel, double click Add New Hardware, click Next and in the panel that opens, select No and click Next again. In the next panel that opens, scroll down and click once on the type of hardware you're installing, click Next and then click Have disk. Follow the directions and Windows should install the hardware. If Windows tells you it can't find the software for your Hardware, click Browse, and find and select the file on the disk with the .inf extension. This is what it's looking for.
Image	Stuck in MS-DOS compatibility mode You go to system properties and it says you are operating in MS-DOS compatibility mode. This means that for some reason Windows has lost the correct IDE controllers for your hard drive. Before you re-install Windows try this repair that usually works. First, boot to Safe Mode and run regedit by clicking Start, Run and typing in regedit and clicking Ok. In the window that opens click Edit and then find and type in: NoIDE and then click Find next. Give it some time as it may take a few minutes. If found, right click the value and click delete, close regedit and restart the computer. If there isn't a NoIDE entry then the next step is click the plus signs by HKEY_LOCAL-MACHINE, ENUM, MF and then right click on CHILD0000 and CHILD0001 and delete each. Close regedit and restart the machine and select normal mode if prompted. When the machine reboots it will find new devices and ask to restart. KEEP TELLING IT NO until it is done and you are in the desktop. Then restart the machine.
Image	Installing a dll file Windows told you that a required .dll ( dynamic link library ) file was missing and you searched your computer and it is there, or you found it on the internet and placed it in the proper folder and still get the same message. If the .dll file is there or was just placed into a folder, it must be "registered" in the registry. Fortunately Windows is equipped with a handy utility to perform this task. Click Start, Run and type in: regsvr32 dllname.dll and click Ok. If it fails to register it may be due to a version conflict and you will have to remove the old registry entry and then "register" it again. Run regedit, and in the page that opens click Edit, Find and type in: InstalledFiles and click Find next. Search the right hand panel for the name of the .dll and if there right click the name, click modify and clear the data from the panel that opens. Close regedit, restart the computer and then try registering the .dll again.
Image	Uninstalled some software and now Windows can't find a file Occasionally when uninstalling software a reference to a file gets left behind and when Windows boots you get a "Windows can't find the file named whatitis.xyz. The first place to check is the win.ini and system.ini files. Click Start, Run and type in sysedit and click Ok and the System Configuration Editor will open a series of cascading panels. Click the x to close autoexec.bat and config.sys and then scan the win.ini page and the system.ini page and look for a reference to the file windows can't find. If you find it place a semicolon ; at the very beginning of the line to make it a REM or Remark statement which makes Windows ignore the entry. Click the X and click yes to save changes and restart the computer. If there were no references found, run regedit and use the Edit, Find feature to search for and delete any references to the file, close regedit and restart.
Image	Finding a file that is in a CAB ( compressed format or cabinet ) file Two panels above I discussed registering a file in the registry. If Windows tells you it can't find a file and it is a normal Windows file, there is a way to search the CAB or install files without using WinZip or another utility to open and read the list of files in each and every CAB file. Click Start, Find, select files or folders and in the panel that opens type *.cab and then click advanced, in the Containing text line, type the name of the file you're looking for. Windows will search every CAB file on the drive and provide a list of those containing the file. You can also search CD's using the same method.
Go get it Image	Extracting the file you found with WinZip I was going to put in a section about using the Windows Extract command in DOS to "extract" the file you found, but getting the DOS syntax exactly right even gives me fits. Do us both a favor and download and install a copy of WinZip. It will open CAB files so you can select the file you need to extract. It has a 30 day free trial and the trial version will do everything you need to do. Click the link to the left or use a search engine and look for WinZip.
Image	If Windows Explorer has failed try Winfile Included in Windows 95 is a leftover from Windows 3.1 called Winfile. To use it click Start, run and type in winfile and click Ok. A totally different version of file manager opens, and displays the files on your hard drive from a different point of view, which includes exact file size and a listing of the file attributes. The other drives are accessible for file copying etc, and when Windows Explorer has failed, Winfile will "sometimes" still work.
Image	Find a "lost" control panel You right click on the desktop and nothing happens or try to open a control panel and it doesn't work. Windows control panels have the .cpl file extension, so to find them use the find files or folders feature and type in *.cpl and click find now. A list will appear and they can be opened by right clicking on the one you want and then clicking "Open with control panel."
Image	Computer hangs up just before the "Desktop" opens You've installed a new component or changed a setting and now when the computer boots it "freezes" or "hangs" just when it seems that the desktop should open. This is a sign that the IDE controllers for the hard drive have become contaminated or had an improper setting installed. The repair procedure is the same as for correcting MS-DOS compatibility mode as mentioned above. First, boot to Safe Mode and run regedit by clicking Start, Run and typing in regedit and clicking Ok. In the window that opens click Edit and then find and type in: NoIDE and click Find next. Give it some time as it may take a few minutes. If found, right click the value and click delete, close regedit and restart the computer. If there isn't a NoIDE entry then the next step is click the plus signs by HKEY_LOCAL-MACHINE, ENUM, MF and then right click on CHILD0000 and CHILD0001 and delete each. Close regedit and restart the machine and select normal mode if prompted. When the machine reboots it will find new devices and ask to restart. KEEP TELLING IT NO until it is done and you are in the desktop. Then restart the machine.
Image	Determine your motherboard manufacturer Having computer problems and need to find out who manufactured the motherboard. Instead of opening the case and trying to interpret part or serial numbers or FCC id's, simply download and run a little utility called CTBios. A search engine will find multiple download sites. It can be run right from the desktop.
Go get it Image	Determine CPU version and related information Having problems installing a device or some software and need to know if it is "processor" related. Go to H Odas' site and download the free utility Wcpuid. It will tell you everything you need to know and more.
Image	Use Msconfig from Windows 98 for troubleshooting Have a problem you can't find? Msconfig from Windows 98 will work in all versions of Windows 95. It can be run from the desktop, but should be placed in the Windows\System folder and the two help files should go in the Windows\Help folder. It lets you edit the files normally opened with System Editor, ( sysedit ) and also remove entries from the Run key in the registry without having to use the Registry Editor ( regedit ). You will have to use a search engine to find a download site. Type in msconfig.exe
	Repair or reinstall Windows without losing your software and files Windows has crashed or refuses to load and the only thing you get is a DOS or command prompt. If the appropriate files are in the Windows directory, the following DOS commands will start the repair or install process and keep your applications and files intact. At the command prompt which looks like this: C:\> type: cd:\windows\options\cabs and press enter. Then type: setup and press enter. Windows "should" start to reinstall. Notes: If you suspect a virus, run a virus program as soon as possible after the reinstall to prevent re-infection. ( Note: cd:\ is a change directory switch, it has nothing to do with a CD-ROM ) Warning: Do NOT use Oemsetup.exe as it will reformat the drive and erase the files. The icon on the left is just there to fill the space.
Open	Command line switches for DOS level setup I confirmed the adage "you learn something everyday" when I ran across this while surfing. The setup command has several useful "switches" which can be used when installing Windows in/from DOS. Another set of unadvertised Microsoft secrets. Open will open a page with text you can copy and paste to a Notepad file to save on your computer.
Download Image	Use the tools scanreg and scanreg/restore from 98 in Windows 95 The automatic registry backup and restore tool set from Win98 will work in 95. Thanks to an e-mail from Carol J, I've installed and use them. Also, since it's becoming impossible to find the files on the web, I have created an install file that will install Scanreg on your Windows 95 computer. It will start working the next time you start your machine. Just click Download, save it to your desktop and double click Scanregsetup.exe to run the install. Clicking Image will open a text page of instructions that you can copy and paste to a Notepad file so you can save it to your C: drive and read it in DOS if need be. Instructions on reading files with the DOS Edit command are Here