Unleashing Windows: Windows 95 Registry Backups

If you own the CD-ROM version of Windows 95, try looking at what interesting items lurk on the CD after you've installed Windows 95. You'll find some interesting video clips, the game Hover, and some very interesting utilities. None of this is installed when Windows 95 was installed off of the CD-ROM. In this column, we're going to take a look at two very important utilities that are buried in the Windows 95 CD-ROM.

If you've ever lost the Windows 95 Registry settings, you've probably has a hard time getting Windows 95 back to it's original state without reinstalling it all over again. Wouldn't it be nice if there were just some way to have a backup of the Registry handy? Well, guess what...there are two utilities off the Windows 95 CD-ROM to do just that. These two utilities are not installed by the Windows 95 installation, so you have to install them yourself.

First off, before we start talking about the utilities, let's take a look at what the Registry does and what files make up the Registry. The Windows 95 Registry contains all of the hardware, network, and user settings. Also, many programs designed for Windows 95 keep information in the Registry as well. The Registry in Windows 95 is designed to replace the .ini files that were used by earlier versions of Windows. Both Windows NT and Windows 95 use a Registry system to hold computer information, but there are notable differences between the two. Right now, we'll just look at the Windows 95 Registry utilities. The Registry consists of two files: system.dat and user.dat. The system.dat holds hardware configurations and the user.dat holds information about users and user settings.

If you have the CD-ROM version of Windows 95, then you'll be able to find these utilities. The reason you can't find these from the floppy disk version is simple: The CD-ROM version is able to hold a lot more information at a cheaper manufacturing price. If all the things on the CD-ROM were included in the floppy version, the box would be filled to the brim with nothing but floppies and would increase the production price dramatically. As operating systems become bigger, distribution via CD-ROM will become more commonplace.

If you look at the Windows 95 CD-ROM, you'll notice a folder (formerly known as a directory) called Other. In this Other folder there is a Misc folder. In this Misc folder, you'll notice four folders, two of which we're interested in. This first is cfgback, and the other is eru. Despite their cryptic names, they both are simple programs that can reduce headaches dramatically should the Registry ever become corrupted or damaged.

First, let's take a look at the cfgback program. Cfgback stands for Configuration Backup program. This program copies and compresses the Windows 95 Registry files and puts them in the Windows 95 directory. This is extremely useful if you make changes through Control Panel or decide to play with the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and make some mistakes in doing so. Now you have a Registry that no longer works. While Windows 95 tries to correct the situation the next time it starts, it's not very good at restoring the Registry. While it might work, chances are there will still be some problems lurking out there. The cfgback program helps us save and restore Registry settings.

To install the cfgback program, copy the cfgback folder to a hard drive. From there, you can add a shortcut to it on the taskbar or on the desktop. I put mine in the System Tools folder since most of the Windows 95 system tools are located there. When you run cfgback.exe, an intro wizard is run telling you what cfgback does before bringing you to the main window. In the main window, you simply type a filename you want to use to back up the Registry to. Then, the program will copy and compress the Registry information into the Windows 95 folder. You can save many different versions of the Registry. This is a very nice feature for laptop or portable users, since Registry settings may vary depending on whether the computer is attached to a docking station or not. To restore Registry settings, run the cfgback program again and select a backup to restore. Click the Restore button and cfgback will copy the save version to the Registry. You'll need to restart the computer for the new changes to take effect.

Also, one thing to note with the cfgback program, although you can move the backup files to a different disk or folder, the program will only restore backups that are located in the Windows 95 folder. So, be sure to copy the file to the Windows 95 folder before trying to it using cfgback. As long as you can get into Windows 95, you can use cfgback to restore Registry settings.

But, what if you can't get back into Windows 95 after the Registry has been corrupted or changed? Eru, or Emergency Recovery Utility, can make a disk or folder with all of the critical system files, not just the Registry. For example, the autoexec.bat, config.sys, and other files are copied as well as the two Registry files. This allows you to simply copy and rename the files to replace the old ones from DOS. To install eru, simply copy the directory over to the hard drive and set up an icon or menu item for the program. Once this program is run, it will ask you for the destination of the files. Then, you can copy all the files over, or you can select which files to copy. These files are not compressed, so if you ever need to restore them, you can simply copy them to the new location. You will, however, have to rename them also since an underscore is put in the middle of the extension to prevent accidental copying over the system files.

This two utilities can save a lot of time if the Registry fails. More importantly, since they are very simple and quick to use, they can be used on a daily basis (or at least every time something changes.) If you are one of those users who has a tendency to put off backing up your Windows 95 system, be sure to use these utilities! You'll definitely be glad you did if the Registry ever fails.

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