I was afraid of that...
Yeah, it looks VERY much like a reinstall in necessary....
Make sure you back up EVERYTHING - EG: your e-mail (if you're using Outlook Express, your e-mail is in the strangest places on your drive - be warned!), bookmarks, etc. before you reinstall!
I recommend getting hold of a Win98 boot disk. I know you're using Win95, but the Win98 boot disk has CD ROM drivers on it that will let you set up Windows properly, right from DOS.
Basically, these are the steps you'd take to put a fresh Win95 back on your machine:
1. BACKUP EVERYTHING!!! Then check to see if you've backed up everything! If you're not sure where something is, ask here...
2. Make sure you have a Win98 boot disk and your Win95 CD, plus any driver CDs you need for your video card, sound card, etc. handy.
3. Boot the system with the Win98 boot disk and select START MY COMPUTER WITH CD ROM SUPPORT. It'll look around for your CD ROM and other PCI devices. Make sure that by the end of it, you've seen it mention that it's assigned a drive letter to your CD ROM, normally E: (It'll load a RAM Disk to D: where your CD ROM normally is for some reason).
4. Check to see if you can go into your CD ROM: Put your Win95 disk in and type
E: <enter> then
dir <enter>. You should see a list of all of the files and folders on your Win95 CD. If not, STOP NOW - there's a problem. Try
D: or
F: instead of
E: and see how you go though - I'm not sure how many drives you have set up, etc.
Whatever you do, you need to be able to see a Win95 directory on your CD ROM - that's crucial!
5. Assuming everything's gone OK so far, type
A: <enter> then type
format C: /s <enter>. This will wipe your C drive and make it bootable. It'll take a while and just answer yes to any questions. You'll have to name it too, so call it whatever you like (I normally call mine SYSTEM).
6. Now we want to copy the Win95 setup files onto your hard drive. A lot of people set straight up from the CD ROM, but that can cause a lot of trouble with real-mode/protected-mode drivers later and in some horrible cases, the setup program forgets you have a CD ROM at all and dies halfway through the installation! Agh!
Type:
C: <enter>
md win95 <enter>
cd win95 <enter
This will create a Win95 directory on your C drive. Then type:
E: <enter> (or whatever you found your CD ROM letter was)
cd win95 <enter>
copy *.* C: <enter>
This will then copy everything over to your C drive's Win95 directory. You should be done copying at this stage.
7. Spit out your floppy disk and reboot the computer by pressing the Reset key (or doing CTRL+ALT+DEL). The system will restart and quickly flash up a Win95 logo, then drop you to the DOS Command prompt.
8. Let's go! Type:
cd win95 <enter>
setup <enter>
The Win95 setup should begin! Customise to your heart's content!
Oh, one last thing, at the end, it may complain about a file called Drivespace being overwritten, it doesn't matter if what you do with this - keep it or overwrite it, it doesn't make a difference! Be creative! Surprise me! HAHAHA!
Then after all of that is done and Windows is running (make sure you use your Video and Sound driver disks to get those running again), put in all of those service packs from the other message and start reinstalling all of your crap all over again!
Good luck!!!
