Windows' Checkered Past

Lenny Bailes

If your Windows 98 system keeps crashing, the System File Checker can help you get back to work. To get started, simply click Start, Run and enter sfc into the Run dialog box. SFC performs two principal tasks: it can extract and restore a single Windows 98 system file to your hard disk, and it can scan all of your Windows system files to resolve version conflicts and restore missing files.

If Windows reports a missing system file (or you know that one is missing), select the "Extract one file from installation disk" radio button and enter the name of the file in the box below it. If Windows reports conflicts with an existing system file on your hard disk, you would also enter its name in this box to replace it with the default Windows 98 version. Click the Start button, and the System File Checker will pull down a "clean" version of the problem file and put it in the correct location. On the next screen, specify the "restore from" location (enter the \Win98 folder from the Windows CD-ROM unless you've got a copy of that folder on your hard drive), then click OK. The program restores the default version of the file. If you've got another version of the file, the next dialog box will let you back it up (click OK) or just restore the Windows default (click Skip).

SFC can also scan all of the Windows system files on your disk and pick out altered or missing ones. Click the "Scan for Altered Files" radio button, then click the Start button. A dialog box will pop up every time SFC detects a missing or altered system file; the dialog displays the date, time, and version of both the existing file and the default Windows 98 version. Then the program asks you what you want to do with the files it discovers. You have four choices:

• Update verification information: Tell SFC to treat the file on your hard disk as the default version.
• Restore file: Reload the default version of this file from the Windows 98 installation files, and delete the existing version.
• Ignore: Tell SFC to bypass the file and continue to scan.
• Update verification information for all changed files: If you know that many original system files have been legitimately replaced (for instance, by the Windows Update Web site), and you don't want to be prompted for action on each file, choose this option.