Re: (O.T.) Win 98 CD

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Patricia M Godfrey wrote:

> Attached is the directory of my 98 SE CD. Compare with yours.

Thanks for the list, Patricia. My next opportunity to buy an OEM cd (at a
show) is going to be a few weeks from now. I will compare these respective
contents when I get the chance.

> By the way, there is a way to winkle out the PRoduct ID of a 98
> installation, IF you
> already have a working one.

I never did. And that bad install / partition has since been wiped.

> Assuming you can boot to Windows, run regedit and navigate to
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-->Software-->Microsoft-->Windows-->Current
> Version-->Product Key.

I found that trick on some website a few weeks back. But it's of no use if
the *installed* W98 does not already exist, somewhere. And this one did
not. There is no key to inspect, prior to the "Enter Product S/N" phase of
the install, and, in any case, you can't run Win at that point. The real
trick would be if you could locate the info inside one of the pre-install CAB
files on the cd, but I'm sure it is encrypted. It would have been dumb of
them not to. That doesn't matter though, since there are "research
alternatives", as I discovered.

The funny thing is that I picked up about half a dozen util.s that purport to
crack this info. But when you go to run them, you find that they require a
Win-32 to run them ! What good is that ? Absent multiple Win partitions on
the same H/D, you can't get there from here.

I've replied back to the List, because I had received some similar
suggestions.

Jordan