System Registry in Windows9x

Introduction to the registry

The registry is probably the most important configuration and customization feature of Windows9x, and as such it needs to be protected from any corruption .
Windows has a number of measures taken to ensure that if the registry is corrupted it is recoverable from backups made and the environment can function normally.
You should be aware of all these features within Windows 9x and be able to utilize them if necessary.
The registry recovery components of windows 95/98 should be understood and used effectively to recover the registry.

The Registry is a rational hierarchical database of all the system settings including hardware configuration settings, user setting and software settings.
If windows 9x was upgraded from windows 3.1, all the initialization files (INI files) are transferred into the registry , and the INI files still remain as an empty shell for backwards compatibility purposes.
The Registry is stored in two separate files (SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT ) in the c:\Windows folder.
The registry cascading tree structure, which is organized in to main, key topics and sub key topic braches.

The main way and the recommended way to make any changes to the system registry is by using the control panel.
Since the registry contains all of our system’s current settings, then making changes to our environment using the control panel icons will ultimately result in the system changing the registry.
This method of changing the registry using the control panel is recommended because the changes that could be made are limited to the menu options provided to the user in the control panel. This reduces the possibilities of the user options to what is available in the menus therefore this cannot be an illogical response resulting in a corrupted registry.

The registry editor REGEDIT .EXE can be used to make direct changes to the registry, backup the registry and restore from previous backups.
This method of editing is highly discouraged unless the user is fully aware of what they are doing. Direct incorrect changes to the registry may corrupt the registry and result in the loss of the Operating system.
The registry editor can create and load registry patches which are portions of the registry with one or more keys designed to share registry information and have a .REG extension
It might be useful to backup the registry on a separate diskette or the system hard drive prior to making any serious changes to the windows operating system environment using the menu options inside the registry editor REGEDIT

Every time your system loads windows 9x , to obtain the GUI environment , the current SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT are updated, and the previous SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT is backup as SYSTEM.DA0 and USER.DA0 inside the windows directory .

If your system runs into serious problems during an installation of a hardware or software so that the GUI environment does not appear on the screen and a backup of the system registry was not previously made, you may want to delete or rename the old SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT and then rename SYSTEM.DA0 and USER.DA0 to SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT respectively using the startup disk and then retry loading windows.
If SYSTEM.DA0 and USER.DA0 were also corrupted for some reason, the last option available to you might be to rename the SYSTEM.1st file located on the root directory which is the backup of your system registry the vary first time your system came up in the windows environment to SYSTEM.DAT .

The registry checker is a tool provided by Windows 98 to make repeated backups of the registry, and to repair a corrupted registry files .
The registry checker makes daily registry backups, holds up to 5 days of backup information by default, and makes backups on demand if necessary.
Every time you restart Windows 98 at system boot up the registry checker is activated in the background checking the current registry for problems and automatically replacing the registry with the latest backup if it has been corrupted.

The registry checker stores all its backup files inside the WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP folder.
The backup files have the naming convention RBn.CAB where n is a number starting from 001 and increasing e.g. (RB001.CAB, RB001.CAB and so on).
To access these backup files you must use the startup disk to boot and be in real mode , and then you can try the following options of SCANREG.
SCANREG/RESTORE Restores registry from backup
SCANREG/FIX Repairs a corrupted registry
SCANREG/BACKUP makes new registry backup, only use when the registry has no problems.
SCANREG/OPT optimizes the registry making its file size smaller.

Which files contain the system current registry in windows 9x? (Choose all that apply)

Which files are the backup of the system registry in windows 95? (Choose all that apply)

What is the name of the first registry backup after the installation of windows 9x?

Answers

1. A,D

2. B,C

3. D

4. A,B

5. A

6. D

7. B