20th June 2001
When Windows goes bad, it really smells. Unlike the month-old pizza at the bottom of your fridge, it can sometimes be salvaged. Windows 98 includes a batch file on the CD that can help you put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Insert your system CD and you should find PCRESTOR.BAT sitting in the \ Tools \ Sysrec folder. Once you've located it, launch it. This will kick off the Setup process in a special mode that reinstalls Windows over the top of your existing installation. After the process is completed, a recovery wizard is executed to help you restore from a full system backup -- assuming you've made one, of course. If you find that you need this tool often, all three files in the Sysrec directory should be copied to a Windows 98 startup disk. Ya know, to further ensure that you have them during a compu-crisis. The Recover.txt file contains instructions for using the tool, and the MSBatch.inf file specifies which components should be initially installed before the recovery process is initiated. You can modify the .INF file accordingly (as long as you know what you're doing). Of course, Millennium Edition has the built-in, ever-controversial, resource-sucking recovery utility. I guess if you dork up things often, it could be a time-saver.