I’ve had a look through Google, but what I’ve seen scares me silly.
A friend has a second-hand computer, with Windows 95 installed, but the seller didn’t sell the CD-Rom. My friend needs to install a driver for his printer, but needs the Win95 CD-Rom to do it (natch).
He’s got another Win95 CD-Rom now, complete with licence, and has been told the only way to install that second copy is to delete the first off the hard drive. Is this true, or would the second CD-Rom simply overwrite the first?
I’m hoping like mad this won’t involve a clean reinstall. I don’t think I have enough lucky rabbits’ feet for that.
Sorry that this is another “Help! I’ve got a computer problem!” question, but guys – I need your expert advice.
I am quite sure the CDrom he has will work as the system is just looking for the drivers. If he is lucky he may even have the CAB files copied to the hard disk (as I have) and could redirect the search there.
Hi, Poloin99. My friend’s got the printer driver – through the marvels of Internet free downloads from the HP site. But the OS asked for the Win95 CD-Rom to be installed in the D drive while the driver was being downloaded in A drive. (I’ve seen this happen before, on a computer with Win95 loaded on with floppies – sheesh, what a mission that was!)
You really should just need the CD, not a full reinstall. Just pop the CD in the drive and point it to the right place.
Windows might say “cannot find specified driver” blah blah blah so you might want to figure out what file it is looking for, explore the win95 CD, and make sure to point the driver install to that folder.
The install might be looking for a file which is within a CAB file, so it might help to go to http://www.microsoft.com and do a search for the file the install is looking for, and microsoft will return a page with a list of all the files within the CAB file, which will help you find the right CAB file on the CD.
If you tell us the name of the file that the install is looking for, perhaps we can help you locate the correct CAB file.
Thanks for the post, ZipperJJ. Whatever part of the Win95 CD-Rom it is, it must be concerned with adding new hardware, such as the printer (an HP 500 Deskjet in one case – and now my friend would like the printer added to be HP 400 Deskjet).
I’m not even sure what a “CAB file” is, here – but I do know that the OS needs to take the instruction from the CD-Rom in order to successfully add the new hardware.
Good grief. I’ve just done a test on the procedure on my own system (Win98) – and I didn’t need to have the CD-Rom at all. Maybe I should just encourage him to upgrade to Win98, hmm?
Put the cd in, when the add printer program asks for it, click browse, point to where the cd is, then click around until you find the directory with the file that it wants. Then click okay. I don’t remember what directory it’s looking for on the cd but probably one called ‘w95.’
Thanks for everyone’s help. I’ll print this thread out now, show my friend, and reassure him we do NOT have to turn his pride and joy into a paperweight.
If your friend has sufficient room on his hard drive you can bypass a lot of this trouble by simply copying the Win95 CD cab files to a directory you make on the hard drive (ie c:\cabfiles). In the future if it asks for the CD simply point it to this directory and it will find waht it needs.
As the others indicated the Win95 CD does not need to be installed for the system to extract the drivers off of it. The system is simply looking for the aforementioned cab files to extract the files it needs. I would be cautious about whatever future PC advice you get from the person who told you about the re-installation requirement.
With respect to re-installation, installing another copy of 95 on top of an existing 95 installation will usually not be helpful if there is a problem with damaged OS files as the 95 install process does not normally replace existing files. In those cases a clean install is recommended.
Also be aware that there are two versions of Win 95 with a Win95 “B” version having a number of different system files and possibly causing compatibility problems if these are simply copied on top of an existing 95 install. If this is the case installing 95B as an upgrade to 95 is the best solution. It will nomrally prompt you to do this automatically if installed and it detects an older 95 version install.
The system folder in control panel will tell you what version you have.