How do I restore a backup registry in Windows 98?

How do I restore a backup of the registry that I have made in Windows 98?

This question was answered on January 5, 2001. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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How to restore a backup made with SCANREG(W) (WIN98 only)

1} Boot system to a command prompt Do this by pressing F8 or the CTRL key as soon as Win98 starts to boot If you were successful, you are looking at a menu If not, wait for windows to start completely (assuming it does) and then click "Start", "Shutdown", "Restart" and try again.

2} Highlight the "Command Prompt Only" option and hit Enter.

3} At the prompt type "scanreg /restore" and hit Enter.

4} Unless you have modified the scanreg.ini file, you should see a list of 5 files named RB0*.CAB You will also see a date/time stamp for each .CAB file

5} Choose the .CAB file you would like to restore (pick a date/time stamp of when the system was last known to be working or one you created before making a change) and hit Enter.

6} Scanreg will attempt to backup the current registry and then try to extract the one you chose If you get an error "RESTORE OPERATION FAILED", repeat above and select the next older .CAB and try again Be careful, every time you try to restore a .CAB it will backup the current registry After 5 failures all you would have left is 5 copies of the current registry.

7} If you were successful, you will see a message "You have restored a known good registry".

Reboot and Windows should startup normally.

8} Be aware that any applications you installed or changes you had made (drivers) since the time you backed up the registry you just restored will have to be done again.

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Posted by Brian of Data Doctors on January 5, 2001

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