I need to re-install Windows 98SE. Tell me if this is going to work.

[SilentBoB]

All I have here is the Windows 98SE upgrade CD. If I use a boot disk and run the Windows Setup and go through all that jazz to re-install windows over itself, will it do away with the registry? Will I have to re-install the drivers for every peice of hardware I own? Will I have to re-upgrade windows media player, Internet Explorer, Direct X and everything else that came installed with windows? TIA.

 

[madthumbs]

I think what normally happens during a reinstall is that files are copied over existing files and defaults are reset. Hardware will most likely be reinstalled, but I think Windows does this on it's own from the drivers already present.

 

[pillage2001]

The system's driver would still be there and windows will automatically find the location of the drivers provided you're not formatting the drive.

Why reinstall? Having blue screens?

 

[SilentBoB]

Theres some conflicting things somewhere that makes Windows not boot past the splash screen when I have a CD-ROM connected. Its weird and the only thing I haven't tried is re-installing.

 

[randomlinh]

what have you tried? installing win98 like that can leave an icky mess.

 

[Homer]

If you reinstall over top of your existing installation, you will, as lnguyen says, have a mess, or at least be likely no better off. The right thing here is a fresh install. That's if you are sure the problem is not with the one piece of hardware. Have you tried another CDROM drive?

The answer to most of your other questions is yes, you will have to reinstall most of those things. But you can make it all a lot easier, if you have other partitions than just C: on your drive:

Copy your W98 CD to an empty partition if you can - difficult if you have no CDROM working.

Copy your precious data, address books, favorites folder etc to another partition. Also copy the Windows Update Setup folder. That's where your updated IE setup files are. If you want to download most of the updates/patches/service packs first from the Windows Corporate Update Site to this partition that will speed up your reinstall. Also any driver files you need, neatly unzipped as necessary into their own folders, so you can browse to them.

Now in goes the W98 startup disk you no doubt already have. Don't run fdisk, too much danger you will delete some partition unintentionally. Just format C:.

Now you are ready to go. From the prompt type the path to your W98 install files and then setup & hit enter.

Here is an alternate method I picked up from some site last year which should work if your CDROM won't work in Windows, but will work when you boot from the Startup disk:

"You do not need the "Full version" CD to do a full version install. The upgrade DOES have all the same info as the full version. If you want to do a clean,full install from the upgrade do this.
Format c:
Go to c: Type md win98
(that will make a dir called win98)
Go to the cd drive d:
copy d:into c:win98
(this will copy the whole CD onto into the win98 dir you just made)
Go to the c:win98 and type setup.
There you go!
Windows 98 will not ask you for the CD ever again. It will know to allways look in the win98 dir. It will also not ask for proof of a earlier version"

Good luck.

 

[bacillus]

hmm,this could be a symptom of a virtual device driver not
initialising properly.
You can pinpoint what file is at fault by booting with
a log file - press F8 at boot and choose boot with
BOOTLOG.TXT. When it freezes reset and boot into
DOS and type edit c:\bootlog.txt and the last file in the
initialisation stage will be the culprit.
You can get an evaluation copy of a great utility for repairing
virtual device driver problems/registry problems etc. at
easydesk software. It is call RegRepair 2000.
Visit http:\\www.easydesksoftware.com and take a look
at their download page. They have loads of troubleshooting
utilities.

 

[Homer]

Try what Bacillus says first.

 

[Technonut]

Reinstalling Windows without Reformatting