Where are backup registry files stored in win98?

trick000

For the life of me I can't find user.da0 or system.da0 anywhere in the \windows\ directory. I did a dir *.da0 /s /a:h /a:s and I did the regular graphical search for the whole hard drive. I made sure to check for hidden files and system files too. I've also read from one of my study guides that the *.da0 files are a myth because the author can't seem to find them either.

I can't find it in win XP neither!

lazyart

With scanreg added to Win98, i guess MS went to a new naming convention. Plenty of times with 95 I had to rename the .da0 files to get a system up and running. Win98 keeps the last 5 registry backups, doesn't it?

RussS

A good question. Do a search for user.da0 but for a file with a word or phrase rather than a file name and you will see that user.dat turns up in the C:\WINDOWS folder. I believe that user.da0 is included as part of user.dat and have yet to find anyone to disprove this belief.

kklentz

In Windows 95, only one registry backup is stored at a time, i.e. system.da0 and user.da0. These files are stored in the \windows directory.

In Windows 98, five registry backups are normally stored in the windows\sysbckup directory. These are stored in a compressed cab file format, i.e. rbxxx.cab, with xxx = 001, 002, etc. Each cab file contains system.dat, user.dat, win.ini, and system.ini by default.

Drakonblayde

scanreg /restore can be your best friend in win98.

trick000

kklentz wrote:

In Windows 95, only one registry backup is stored at a time, i.e. system.da0 and user.da0. These files are stored in the \windows directory.

In Windows 98, five registry backups are normally stored in the windows\sysbckup directory. These are stored in a compressed cab file format, i.e. rbxxx.cab, with xxx = 001, 002, etc. Each cab file contains system.dat, user.dat, win.ini, and system.ini by default.

Thanks kklentz, even an author of an A+ book didn't know that. haha...

lazyart

Now it's all coming back to me, lol.

Boot to command prompt and run scanreg.exe ... it will even show the filename each backup is linked to.

Drakonblayde

I used to work tech support for one of the major ISP's. I won't say which one but some of you may know who I'm talking about from the problem I describe.

Our installation software installed Internet Explorer 4. This normally wasn't a problem. Then the first update to Internet Explorer 4 came out. For some strange reason, our software would install 4... over the new IE4. Well, you can just imagine the sort of havoc this caused.

Under 95, this was a bloody nightmare. It did make backup copies of the important files. So when someone called me up saying they just installed our software and they were then getting WININET.DLL errors, I groaned and asked them what OS they were running. If they said 95, I groaned again (hitting the mute button first of course), and then got settled in for a long call. There were something like 30 files that had to be unattrib'd, renamed, the backups named to the originals, and then reattrib'd. The registry among these.

If they were running 98, life was goood. I'd have them boot to the command prompt, run scanreg /restore and have them choose the backup dated from the day before. This put the registry back in working order. For some messed up reason, after just the registry restore, IE4 would work again, at least long enough for them to hit Windows Update and get everything up to snuff again. In the rare cases where IE4 was still inaccessible, SFC took care of the rest of the problem.

Moral of the story? A. Never ever install the software your ISP gives you B. scanreg /restore = good

lazyart

Never ever install the software your ISP gives you.

I learnt that one a long time ago, lol.

Zephyr

The backup registry files on Windows 98 are stored in windows\sysbckup, but if you have winzip installed the files are considered to be Winzip files not Cab files.