Windows 95 - registry location

Q

quik1

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I have this old win95 machine here. (Client refuses to upgrade)
When the O/S loads it just stops after the "loading win95" boot screen and goes into a comand prompt like c:\
I have tried to do a repair installation but cant get past the product key. I have tried countless keys, but with no success.

I know how to find it in the registry. the problem is how do i access the registry from a Xp machine? Can i load it he registry editor with the load hive comand? and where is it located on the win95 drive?

Please help - i have run out of ideas.:confused:
 
I am probably not helping but surely if Windows doesn't support 95, why should you?

He needs to get with the program.
 
Install Linux and run his program through wine :p

The problem with legacy OS's is that support is not all that great. People tend to learn the newer OSs, and forget how to fix these irritating problems.
 
Ja, time to re-format and re-install.

Sometimes things are just much simpler that way! ;)

People who want you to work on older machines and refuse to upgrade should pay a premium for your service.
 
I'd start with BartPE to boot into Windows XP and then edit the Win95 regsitry on C.

In the absence of Bart PE, make an image with Acronis True Image Workstation using the bootable media. Mount the image in R/W mode as a virtual drive and edit the image, then write it back to to the disk.

Last step: Get the customer a nice new PC. Restore the Win95 image into a VM (using Acronis True Image) so he can use it as deired but also switch easily to the Modern World.
 
Last edited:
I hear you guys LOL :)
its a old lady - she only use it to type (???) or so she says
she wants a P3, but 1st want me to fix the P1 with win95 for the old man

So - is there no way i can get the product key from the drive?
 
quik1 said:
I hear you guys LOL :)
its a old lady - she only use it to type (???) or so she says
she wants a P3, but 1st want me to fix the P1 with win95 for the old man

So - is there no way i can get the product key from the drive?
Click to expand...

not without booting into windows.
 
Lol ... my girlfriend is still using Windows 95 :p ... but she only uses it for music, so I suppose no need to upgrade :p ... I burst out laughing when I saw it though ... got a lekker slap :/
 
Agreed on the virtual machine thing - but be warned - Win95 is very resource intensive, and will hog the CPU literally. Been there, done that. And it takes ages to install.

Wine on Linux will be a good try.

Copy all your data over to a removable hard drive/USB stick, and do the reformat kerfuffle.
 
quik1 said:
I have this old win95 machine here. (Client refuses to upgrade)
When the O/S loads it just stops after the "loading win95" boot screen and goes into a comand prompt like c:\
I have tried to do a repair installation but cant get past the product key. I have tried countless keys, but with no success.

I know how to find it in the registry. the problem is how do i access the registry from a Xp machine? Can i load it he registry editor with the load hive comand? and where is it located on the win95 drive?

Please help - i have run out of ideas.:confused:
Click to expand...

what happens if you type in "win" on the command line when it stops? if that loads windows then you have to edit msdos.sys to correct it (from memory here...LONG time ago)

for a repair installation on win95, you have to use the product key it was installed with, not *any* product key, so this will be difficult without the customers help........the registry is located in 3 files...system.dat, user.dat and if it had networking then there is another file somewhere...slips my mind..
look for files caleld system.da0 and user.da0 and get the dates of these...these are registry backups, you can try using them instead to get the product key, or rename the correct dat files to e.g. system.old and then rename the da0 files to dat and see if it loads correctly.

g_d help you :-)
 
use regedit from the DOS prompt. There is a command-line switch for search. Can't remember what it was, I think it's different in XP. Then do a search for ProductKey. That value is your OEM key.
 
There was once a generic cd-key that worked on every version of Win95 I ever used. From what I understand, some hacker cracked the key generation routine used by Microsoft to create keys. Bill Gates was furious about that.

Whether it still works today, I can't say, nor can I mention it here because it would be against the rules.

I doubt you'll be able to convince those elderly folk to upgrade. If it works, it works, and don't mess with it is their general motto.

Also, putting Linux on won't work too well. The reason for this is because you want to keep the look and feel very similar to 95, but most of the desktop environments will kill that P1. Anything that is light weight on the other hand, hardly resembles 95. Catch 22 situation. I stand to be corrected by those who know more than me :)
 
I remember windows 98 worked with just a string of 1's
Try that on 95...
 
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