06 Mar 2003, 22:01, Paul Williams (1:387/710), wrote to Charles Angelich:

Hi Paul.

 PW>  Actually in '9x the default number of backups is 5 copies where 
 PW> each is created when the system is (re)booted. 

 PW>  I've the laptop set to keep 8 copies by setting 
 PW> MaxBackupCopies=8 in the /windows/scanreg.ini

More important than how many is which ones!  I always make a manual backup
(simply copy them to a "MYBAK" directory) of User.dat and
System.dat before I "mess with certain stuff".

I also like to try to remember to make copies about monthly, as they are
often lifesavers for the times when 'something goes wrong'.

The five copies Windows automatically makes (eight in your case) get used
up pretty fast when something goes wrong, as Windows overwrites them with
corrupt data on a 'bad boot attempt'.

Whenever a friend or relative calls me with "my computer won't go
on", I first ask, "How many times did you try?", and usually
follow that with "turn it off and don't touch anything until I get
there".  First step is boot to floppy and look for the oldest _dated_
rbxxx.dat, if lucky, copy it anywhere, or just rename it in place so
Windows can't find it.

Once that's safe, _then_ try booting to Windows to find out what's wrong.

Win 95/98 have that masochistic ability to self destruct by destroying the
registry backups each time you re-boot to identify a 'problem'.  By the
time you've found the problem, you no longer have any valid registry copies
to allow a 'successful' re-boot.


     Good luck...  M.

--- Msged/386 TE 06 (pre)