Freepin Windows.....

I just had an exciting forty-five minutes. Freepin' Windows.

What happened was this. I have four or five programs on this PC that aren't 'registered' with Windows. Ones a copy of Winword from Windows 97, one was a newsreader called WinVn, one was a copy of Excel from Windows 97, and one was a 16 bit copy of Quicken from the early 90s. Well, I thought, I'm doing backups, but you know, it'd help doing the backup if I put them all in one place. So I created a folder called Our Programs, and I moved all of the directories for those programs under it.

And all hell broke loose. Windows Explorer, still pointing to where it ought to point, would bring up the initialization screen for a Quicken install. System restore, ditto. DOS, ditto. Each one of them tries to start Quicken. I shut down the PC, clicked my heels, turned it back on again. OMG, now its trying to start Quicken all by itself, and not only one, but about fifty copies, to the point where memory's exhausted and ten zillion error messages pop up. OMG.

So I restart it again, in Administrator Safe Mode. (PF8 after the Dell Splash Screen but before the Windows screen). Hah, I'll get in and restore the system.. Only, I can nowhere find how to invoke the damn thing. Lots of references to how useful it is, some about how if you're in Safe mode, you can't create a new restore point, nothing about 'Click here to start the restore'. Argh. I am WELL and truly screwed.

Wait a minute. This all started with that new directory. So -- I deleted the directory. Suddenly, the commands are kind-of working -- they don't try to start Quicken; they don't try to start anything. I try pointing to the executable for Windows Explorer (explorer.exe) but it won't work. Argh.... but then I think 'Lets try doing a system restore again'. I go find the name of the command that system restore uses (RSTRUI.EXE), and I start it . And this time, it worked. I got the system restored back to about four days ago. System comes up. Everything works.

Sigh.

Freepin Windows.