Reinstalling Windows 98SE

[JIMBOB73505]

My son's computer is somewhat messed up and I would like to reinstall Win98SE. While I would like to do a clean reinstall, he is missing all the CDs containing drivers, etc. I have searched and found a few but thought it may be easier and quicker to reintall Windows over itself, saving all drivers. Somewhere I thought I read that you can delete a file (Win.com I think) and then boot from Windows CD and reinstall.

Is this the correct file to delete or rename?

Will all drivers, programs, his files and data, etc stay intact?

Thanks for your help!

[HAL9000]

Two things you can try...

1) boot from the CD with CD support, switch to the CD drive and run the command as follows

setup /p f

be sure to have the spaces in or it doesn't work properly. This will perform a repair installation.

2) Boot from the CD as above and delete the WIN.COM file. Switch to the CD drive and run setup. When prompted for the target directory, it will be defaulted to C:\WINDOWS.000, be sure to rename it back to C:\WINDOWS or else you will have a clean installation. Should you forget to do this, don't panic, the damage is reversible.

Yes, in both cases, all shortcuts, programs, drivers, etc will remain intact.

[JIMBOB73505]

Thanks Hal!