Reseting System To Default

I have an old late 90's HP Pavilion laptop that was given to me from a friend. It is running Windows 98 with 63 MB RAM and 5GB HD. I know it's ancient, but I use it for surfing the net and what not. What I want to do is wipe off everything, all the programs that have been installed over the years and restore it back to it's original factory settings and factory software. Is this possible without having to format the HD and then reinstall Windows 98? Due to the fact that I do not have the original Windows 98 install disc. Any ideas?

 

no, i think it's not possible, the only thing you can do is jusy to uninstall all unneeded progs, make defragmentation, but i don't think that it would help.

 

Yea that's what I have done so far, but there are so many programs on their that I do not know what they do. I think that atleast 70% of them are not neccessary. Any other ideas anyone?

 

Anyone else have an suggestions or ideas?

Thanks

 

Provided that they work in W98 I would Download Crapcleaner and Regseeker and ERUNT. Back up the registry with ERUNT then run crap cleaner then Regseeker. That should remove a lot of the bumpf. If it turns to custard use the safety features of those programs to reinstall whats removed. Then use Diskeeper lite to do a thorough defrag - the w98 defragger is a bit iffy
Cheers
Robert

 

>> What I want to do is wipe off everything, all the programs that have been installed over the years and restore it back to its original factory settings and factory software. Is this possible without having to format the HD and then reinstall Windows 98? Due to the fact that I do not have the original Windows 98 install disc. Anyone else have an suggestions or ideas?<< xscottx

Hi xscottx,

Unfortunately, what you want to do here is simply not possible; at least not in the way you have described above. What I mean is that you can certainly try to "wipe off everything, all the programs that have been installed" etc. and uninstall those applications and utilities that you no longer want to use; and you can also clean up your disk a bit as suggested by MG forum member "Robert" suggests above...

However there is no "legal" way to "reinstall Windows 98" without using any authentic (and legally obtained) Microsoft Windows 98 installation disk. Therefore, you will have to obtain a Win 98 install disk or you can choose another Windows version like Win 98SE or ME, in order to accomplish what you want to do here. Unfortunately, with 63 MB RAM and 5GB HD your Windows "version" installation choices are going to be limited to older Windows versions.

The “good news” is you can probably obtain a 98 disk on eBay for peanuts (compared to what Win 98 cost when it was first released). For example listed here is: Windows 98 1st Edition - New in Box! listed at eBay.

Side Note: Microsoft no longer provides any updates for Win 98/SE/Me.

Good Luck

 

Thanks to everyone for their helpful suggestions. I think I am going to format completely and reinstall Windows 98. I think I have a Windows 98 disk somewhere, if I can't find it I will buy one off of ebay. Thanks again for all the suggestions. Much appreciated. Cheers.