Almost Like "System Restore" For Windows 98SE ...

[Monroe]

... maybe not quite but a couple of nice little Registry Backup programs for Windows 98SE that maybe some are not aware of ... the first is "Rescue by Ronaldo" ... I have posted what someone wrote about this little program, exactly what I read when I first discovered this little gem. It is listed as a recovery program for Windows 95 but does work with Windows 98SE. .... I will add a third registry backup program at the end ... all these programs are getting old but still seem to be available at the links ... never know, one of them might disappear someday, download and save if you think they are of some value.

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RESCUE by Ronaldo

A Windows 98 Recovery program ... this little freeware program is truly amazing! The author must have had one of those moments of true inspiration when he wrote RESCUE. It is simple to use, easy to understand and provides valuable protection for your computer by backing up your registry. Sheer genius! ... and it works! I should know since I have had to use it once already (it was just a small, little change to the system.ini file, I thought it was harmless; but when I rebooted, all I had was wallpaper! ... no desktop icons, no explorer, no nothing, just wallpaper! ... but since I had backed up right before this small, little, harmless change, I just followed the directions to restore my registry, rebooted and was back in business. It took a whole 7 or 8 minutes!) let me tell you, this is one very cool program!

All RESCUE is ... is a bunch of simple DOS commands arranged in the proper order in an executable batch file! This is what makes it so beautiful! Its simple elegance screams at you! Version 1 can automatically backup your registry every time you start windows and you can manually save your registry in a second place whenever you like and all that takes in one double click (there is no automatic backup with version 2, but that's ok, I like version 2 better).

To restore from a backup, all you do is boot into DOS, make one simple directory change, then type a one word command. That's it! It's so simple, it's brilliant! There are some very expensive programs out there that claim to do the same thing, but they will never be as easy to use as RESCUE! Throw them all out! Download RESCUE now and get some peace of mind for once! There are no screenshots per se, so I have elected to talk at length about RESCUE on the screenshot page (but what else is new!) ... and before I forget, the author has told me that Rescue WILL WORK with Windows 98. So there! Also ... the download is on the appropriate screenshot page! Ok, I'm feeling adventurous! What else can you possibly say about RESCUE?

A quick note about Rescue v2 and viruses ... (note to me: Sunday, August 13, 2000)

It has been reported to me by two different visitors {earlier this year} that their version of "McAfee Antivirus" reported a virus when they tried to run the setup for Rescue v2. Briefly ... this is a false positive. McAfee has said themselves, after some research, that their virus scanning engine gave a wrong reading and identified it wrong, and that to solve this, you needed to update the DAT file to the most recent version. So, to recap, Rescue v2 does NOT have a virus.

I was rather surprised to find this out. I use McAfee on my 3 computers at home. I have McAfee on the 30 computers at work, that I am in charge of. My parents and brothers use McAfee and I have installed Rescue v2 on all of those computers and McAfee has never complained once. Anyway, if this happened to you, sorry about that but Rescue does not contain any virus. All you have to do is look at Rescue, they are DOS batch files, open them up in any text editor and all that they contain are simple DOS commands, which is the whole beauty of Rescue to begin with. Anyway, I won't go on anymore because I hope that I have made my point. Please email me if you have any questions or concerns, I will address them as best as I can.

In fact, Rescue saved my butt about three weeks ago (this would be the 2nd weekend in July 2000) I was playing a game on my Win 98SE computer, I hit a wrong key and my computer

froze up. No big deal, I just rebooted, but upon rebooting, Win 98SE reported I had a corrupt registry and Win 98SE then said it would replace my bad registry with a good copy. I thought to myself 'ok, sure, why not' (actually I had no choice, this was just a blue information screen and my only choice was to hit any key to continue). So ... Win 98SE did something and automatically rebooted my computer and guess what happened ... same darn blue screen of death and windows saying that my registry was corrupt, it will replace it and hit any key to continue. I watched my computer do this 3 more times as Win 98SE kept replacing my corrupt registry with its own copy of my corrupt registry and rebooting. I just said screw it (pardon my language), I popped in a DOS boot floppy, booted into DOS, ran the repair batch file for Rescue, it restored my registry in 2 seconds, I rebooted my computer and it has been fine since then.

Anyway, please download Rescue and backup that registry while you can before some stray electron from somewhere corrupts it. Rescue only works if you backup your registry when you know your computer is working well. I have no idea what I would have done to get my computer back, except for a complete reinstallation but because I had Rescue, I was able to restore my computer quickly. (note, the whole process took about 10 minutes, the first 9 minutes were spent quietly cursing my computer and watching it restore a corruptted registry 3 times; the last minute was spent restoring my registry with Rescue, rebooting back to windows and starting my game up again).

Anyway, I've gone on now for far longer than I planned to but this issue is important to me because I love to try and use freeware. I've been doing this for several years now, (today's date being Sunday, August 13, 2000) and I've never had a virus or a virus warning, with any freeware or shareware that I have tried and the thought that I might pass a virus out is appalling to me. So, not knowing what else to say ... keep those virus definitions up to date. Thanks ... mikey

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OK, the above is long on details and description but it explains that program very well ... the "RESCUE by Ronaldo" link.

... http://www.softcom.net/users/mikey719/resc...screenshot.html ......

Now the second registry gem .... we all know how Windows 98 saves 5 copies of the registry in case a copy or two become corrupted ... this program will change that to 14 backup copies (or whatever number you want ... 20, 50) ... I think 14 would be enough in case of some serious registry problems, odds should be that some out of the 14 should be OK ... this is not a download, just simple instructions as to how to change the normal 5 backup number to 14 registry backup copies but there is a batch download available to make it all easy. All explained further down. At the web page you have to page down to the middle. Top is blank, at least for me.

... http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/regback1.html ....

There is a link to "Bobstur's Batch File" in the article for his download that makes things very easy with this registry backup program ... the way they have the link to the download file I can't paste it here but the link does still work for this program at the web site ... it will be on Page 3 ... because the article is so long I edited out a good part of it ... on Page 1 there is a link for downloading the whole article in text but by simply downloading Bobstur's Batch File it makes everything easy and simple, if you would like a 14 day registry backup. Just grab both the article and batch download ... it explains that if you do a restore, you simply pick a letter to reload a registry backup.

Bobstur's Batch File

A very knowledgeable friend and all around swell guy, Bob Sturtevant, created a very crafty batch file which gives you more control over restoring the Registry. This batch file overcomes the serious limitations of SCANREG by making many more backup copies of the Registry easily and readily available. To look at it here you might think it is complicated, but in fact it's designed to be remarkably simple to use. We've made it available to you here in two formats: As text you can copy and paste into a plain text (Notepad) file and then save with the name CABREST.BAT in your root directory.

Or you can click here to download a zipped copy of the batch file. Save it in a folder on your hard drive. After the download is finished, unzip it to your root directory.

Either way, once it's in the root directory just leave it there and forget about it until you need it.

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How To Back Up And Restore Your Registry In Windows 98

Before you get started, we recommend that you print this article and keep

it near at hand.

When you first saw the title of this article you may have been mildly

curious, but you may not realize just how important the ability to backup

the Registry can be. I see numerous posts in help forums desperate for a

solution to what seems like insurmountable problems which could easily be

completely repaired by restoring the Registry. But there is one more

important use for this skill: Have you ever installed a program only to

find that the installation routine has either gone terribly wrong or has

made unexpected and unwanted changes and even uninstalling the program

doesn't set it right? This is just the sort of "damage" that can be

instantly undone with a simple Registry restoration. The beauty of it is

that it's dead simple to do.

This information will guide you through the steps required to backup and

restore your Registry. We will go a step further here though; we will show

you how to increase the number of back up copies of your Registry as well

as provide you with a small, simple and extremely powerful program which

allows you much greater control over how you manipulate these backup files.

The Standard Set Up

By default, Windows 98 will make a backup of your Registry just once daily,

but only if you reboot during that calendar day. The standard setting keeps

a backup for each of the previous five days only -- a rather limited number

if you ever get into trouble. Also, if you don't reboot for an entire day,

Windows will not create a backup. And it doesn't matter how often you

reboot, only one backup will be generated per day. This is critical because

you may, through program installations or direct manipulation, make

significant changes to the Registry during the course of your computing

sessions on any given day. If you wanted to restore a version of the

Registry from a point after you had made changes during the day you would

be unable to do so unless you have more backup copies at your disposal.

Remember though, each new backup will replace the oldest one archived by

Windows 98.

Improving The Standard Set Up

We recommend that you make more immediate copies of your Registry on an as

needed basis. Make a backup copy just before beginning an editing session

or installing any program, even small ones, which modify the Registry. That

way, should the results of your edits have undesired effects or if you make

an error, you can simply restore the copy from a few minutes before, even

if your machine has been rendered unbootable by your edits or installation.

Presto - you're back in business. That it is remarkably easy to do this

should serve to encourage you to be diligent in backing up your Registry.

We will also show you how to make more than five copies of your Registry a

little later on in this article. For now though, let's start with the

fundamentals.

To Backup Your Registry In Windows 98:

Click Start/Run, type SCANREGW and click OK.

This will launch Windows' Registry scanner and backup utility. Once

complete you will see a Registry Scan Results dialog box informing you of

the results of the scan (it will tell you whether there were errors or not)

and asking if you'd like to create a backup.

Click the Yes button and Scanreg will replace your oldest backup with a

current copy of the Registry.

That's it. It's that easy.

If you read no further than this you'll have learned how to backup your

Registry when you want, rather than relying on Windows' single daily back

up. But we have much more good information here for you, so read on!

To Restore Your Registry:

In order to restore one of your copies of the Registry you must boot into

DOS. There are three basic ways to boot into pure DOS.

If you are in Windows you can go to Start/Shut Down... and select Restart

in MS-DOS mode. The computer will restart in pure DOS (not a DOS box in

Windows - very important distinction).

Alternately, if your computer is already off, you can start it into pure

DOS by holding down the Ctrl key as soon as the BIOS information clears the

screen. As soon as the menu appears, press the Space Bar (or any other key)

once. This will keep the menu active and allow you the time to read over

the selections available. Choose Command Prompt Only from the menu. You

will then be in Pure DOS.

If you are having trouble booting your computer, you can use your ERD (the

Emergency Recovery Disk) to boot into DOS. Simply insert the disk into the

floppy drive and reboot the computer. It will do all the work for you.

Any of these choices will get you into pure DOS. Once there you can restore

or even make another backup copy of the Registry.

In order to restore any copy of the Registry, either a copy you made or one

that Windows 98 itself made within the last five days, just type

SCANREG/RESTORE. Using the arrow keys, select the CAB (the CABs you will

see are archived copies of the Registry) you want. The CAB files are listed

by date with the most recent copy at the top. Once you've restored the

Registry, use the arrow keys to highlight Exit and then reboot.

If you like, you can also create another backup in DOS by typing

SCANREG/BACKUP. Then follow the prompt. This backup will work exactly like

the one you made in Windows. There is no functional difference.

You should now be able to boot back into Windows 98 normally, just as

before you edited the Registry or had a problem. Now you know how to

restore those back up copies you made. See, we told you there would be more

good information. And we've just barely begun.

Making Additional Backup Copies Of Your Registry

The mechanism that Windows uses to control Scanreg is amazingly simple.

It's just a plain text file called SCANREG.INI which you can easily edit

with Notepad. When you run Scanreg, it first checks in this file to see if

you've customized any of the available parameters such as the maximum

number of backup copies, or where the copies are stored. To view and edit

SCANREG.INI, simply click once on a blank spot on the Desktop Taskbar and

press F3. Type SCANREG.INI in the Named: box, and type C:\WINDOWS in the

Look in: box. Click Find Now and in a moment, when you see the file in the

window simply double click it to launch it in Notepad. The standard version

of SCANREG.INI should read something like this:

;

; Scanreg.ini for making system backups.

;

;Registry backup is skipped altogether if this is set to 0

Backup=1

;Registry automatic optimization is skipped if this is set to 0

Optimize=1

ScanregVersion=0.0001

MaxBackupCopies=5 [We recommend changing this number to 14]

When you practiced restoring your Registry in DOS as described above, you

probably noticed that only four copies of the Registry are available to

SCANREG. Even if you create more backup copies of your Registry as

suggested above, you will only be able to access four of those copies.

What's more, SCANREG will seemingly randomly choose any four copies. The

obvious drawback is that you don't have access to all your carefully stored

copies. What if you need one of the copies that SCANREG has not made

available to you for restoration? ... Not to worry, we have a solution.

Bobstur's Batch File

A very knowledgeable friend and all around swell guy, Bob Sturtevant,

created a very crafty batch file which gives you more control over

restoring the Registry. This batch file overcomes the serious limitations

of SCANREG by making many more backup copies of the Registry easily and

readily available. To look at it here you might think it is complicated,

but in fact it's designed to be remarkably simple to use. We've made it

available to you here in two formats: As text you can copy and paste into a plain

text (Notepad) file and then save with the name CABREST.BAT in your root

directory.

Or you can download a zipped copy of the batch file. Save it in a folder on your

hard drive. After the download is finished, unzip it to your root directory.

Either way, once it's in the root directory just leave it there and forget about

it until you need it.

A few preliminary notes:

You will see a table which will allow you to select which CAB file to

restore from. So, for example, to restore from rb009.cab, you look at the

table and see 09 corresponds to the letter J. You type the J and NOT the

number.

This batch file assumes that your CAB files are stored in the default

location, C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP and that your Windows directory is C:

\WINDOWS. If you have your Windows installation on another partition or

located in some other directory then please edit the batch file

accordingly.

Take a quick look in your C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP directory and make sure that

you currently only have CAB files in the range rb000.cab to rb014.cab.

(Note: rb means Registry Backup.) If there are any other additional rb-CABs

move them somewhere else.

The program must be run from real mode DOS (Command Prompt Only) and will

intentionally abort if Windows is running.

Note in that CTRL-C will stop the program at any point, and you'll also be

asked one last time if you want to restore the files.

About the only thing you could do wrong would be to restore an older backup

when you didn't want to, but then you could just run the program again and

restore the correct one, so don't worry if you're unsure which CAB to

restore.

That's it. Simple, no? Once in your root directory just boot into pure DOS

and simply type CABREST and hit ENTER. The rest is cake.

Summary

As you've seen, this whole process is much more difficult to explain than

it is to use. Once you understand how to backup and then restore your

Registry you can do it in a flash. The batch file provided should make it

even easier. The versatility that this knowledge allows you should help you

avoid problems or repair them quickly rather than end up stressing out

because you have to reinstall Windows 98.

Enjoy!

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The third registry backup program is a simple backup program called "COP 2.2 by Plato" ... it's just good for a quick registry backup just before you want to try out some software ... if something goes wrong, you uninstall the software and run COP and you are good to go again ... it does have a few little extras also.

... http://www.bootdisk.com/cop.htm ....

Hope these programs will be of some use ....

...

Edited April 4, 2009 by duffy98

[MDGx]

Wow... that's a great guide. Thanks.

Sorry, I couldn't resist, I have something similar at my site:

http://www.mdgx.com/newtip12.htm#REGBAK

HTH

[Monroe]

MDGx ... I didn't know about REGBAKUP.BAT at your site. There is so much at your site that it's very easy to miss something, at least in my case. I have been using all 3 programs for maybe five years now and just decided yesterday to take a few minutes to do a write up on them ... thought they might be of interest to other 98SE users ... and also Windows 95 and 98, since they should work OK with those OSs also. That batch file that the guy wrote for the 2nd registry program really makes that one very easy to work with. ... as I said I have all three on my notebooks. COP 2.2 by Plato is really great for trying out software, it does a quick registry restore without getting too involved.

I hadn't used those links for many years, I was suprised but very happy they still worked ... COP 2.2 by Plato is very hard to find, most links are dead now, if you can find any.

[MDGx]

MDGx ... I didn't know about REGBAKUP.BAT at your site. There is so much at your site that it's very easy to miss something, at least in my case. I have been using all 3 programs for maybe five years now and just decided yesterday to take a few minutes to do a write up on them ... thought they might be of interest to other 98SE users ... and also Windows 95 and 98, since they should work OK with those OSs also. That batch file that the guy wrote for the 2nd registry program really makes that one very easy to work with. ... as I said I have all three on my notebooks. COP 2.2 by Plato is really great for trying out software, it does a quick registry restore without getting too involved.

I hadn't used those links for many years, I was suprised but very happy they still worked ... COP 2.2 by Plato is very hard to find, most links are dead now, if you can find any.

If you decide to post your batch re-write [tested/working model], please let me know, and I'll add it to my web site.

Thanks.

Keep up the good work...