Windows 95 Emergency Recovery Utility (139437)

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You can use the Windows 95 Emergency Recovery Utility to create a backup of your system configuration and registry files in case a problem should occur.

This utility is located on the Windows 95 CD-ROM in the Other\Misc\ERU folder.

Backing Up Your Configuration

To create a backup of your system configuration files, double-click the Eru.exe file and follow the instructions on the screen.

You will need to choose a location for storing the backup information. By default, the information is stored on a floppy disk in drive A. However, you can choose to store the backup information in another location, such a local hard disk or a mapped network drive. The files that are backed up by default are:

   Config.sys
   Autoexec.bat
   Win.ini
   System.ini
   Protocol.ini
   User.dat
   System.dat
   Io.sys
   Command.com
   Msdos.sys
   Explorer.exe
				

Note that the User.dat file that is backed up is the User.dat file in the Windows folder. The User.dat file in the Windows\Profiles\<username> folder is not backed up by default.

Custom Backups

If you want to back up only certain files, click the Custom button in the file list screen. You can choose to back up only the files you want.

Restoring Your Configuration

To restore the backup information, start your computer at a command prompt and then run Erd.exe. If you do not want to restore all the files, press SPACEBAR to select or deselect files. Note that you cannot run Erd.exe within Windows 95. You must run this utility at a command prompt. If you saved your backup information to a network drive, you must be able to access the network drive at the MS-DOS level.

To start your computer at a command prompt, restart your computer, press the F8 key when you see the "Starting Windows 95" message, and then choose Command Prompt Only from the Startup menu. Then, change to the floppy drive or directory containing the backup information and run Erd.exe.

Microsoft recommends that you use the Emergency Recovery Utility to create a new backup each time you make significant changes to your system, such as adding new hardware or software.

For information about a potential problem backing up files with the Emergency Recovery Utility, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Note that the Emergency Recovery Utility cannot back up all the configuration files if there is not enough room on the destination disk. If there is not enough room on the destination disk, the Emergency Recovery Utility backs up as many files as will fit, skipping the largest files first. For example, the Emergency Recovery Utility usually cannot back up the registry files (System.dat and User.dat) if you try to back up the configuration files to your Windows 95 Startup disk.