ID:194623
 
My friend recently received a copy of MS Office 2000 to install on his Windows 95 computer. The setup application froze while installing, and the program was never completely installed. My friend deleted what he thought were the related files in an attempt to uninstall. Now, he says, none of the fonts on his computer are displaying correctly (there may be a few other problems too). It's driving him crazy. He'd reinstall Windows 95 but the only cd he has access to is from an older version than the one on his computer, and it won't let him reinstall. He needs his computer back to normal as soon as possible--preferably by tomorrow.

I don't want him to have to spend any money. Anyone know what's going on? I can't find any help for the font problem on the web (though the MS site has help for when Office freezes while installing). Does it sound like he deleted a file he shouldn't have? Or did his font files just get corrupted? (Arial doesn't look like Arial, Times New Roman doesn't look like itself, etc.) Could he uninstall Windows 95 and then install from the older Windows 95 cd, and if so, how? How much of his hard drive would that wipe out? Anything I haven't thought of?

You guys may not be computer experts, but you may know more than I, and time is running out. Any ideas would be a big help.

Z
If it were my computer, I'd reformat the hard drive and then reload with a clean install of Windows. The problem is that Win95 is not bootable from the CD-ROM drive so I'd have to "format c: /s" from a boot disk, create an autoexec.bat and config.sys file that loads CD-ROM drivers, then boot into C: and run the setup.exe from the CD-ROM.

I've got some boot disks I've made specifically for this, but I haven't tested them in some time as I haven't loaded win95 on a machine since Win98 came out. And of course, Win98+ are bootable from the CD-ROM drive so I don't have to worry about such things unless I really hose an install.

The main requirement here is that the BIOS supports booting from the CD-ROM drive.

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In response to Gabriel
On 8/13/00 4:28 pm Gabriel wrote:
If it were my computer, I'd reformat the hard drive and then reload with a clean install of Windows. The problem is that Win95 is not bootable from the CD-ROM drive so I'd have to "format c: /s" from a boot disk, create an autoexec.bat and config.sys file that loads CD-ROM drivers, then boot into C: and run the setup.exe from the CD-ROM.
If you're feeling brave you can simply 'restart in MS-DOS mode', check you can still see your CD-ROM and format C: Don't reboot just go to your CD-ROM and setup.exe.
A more sensible option is to go to 'Add/Remove Programs' in the control panel and select the end tab - create start up disk.

If you want to have a go at solving your os problems have you tried editing the system registry and checking to see if there are any entries under office2000 or 2000? (I've never used it so I don't know about its install).

The other thing to try is to look in c:/windows/fonts and check the modified date, if the files have been changed copy the font directory off another machine.
In response to Al
On 8/14/00 2:11 am Al wrote:
If you want to have a go at solving your os problems have you tried editing the system registry and checking to see if there are any entries under office2000 or 2000? (I've never used it so I don't know about its install).

You'll have to remind me how to get into the system registry.

All that stuff with startup disks and MS-DOS is too complex for my friend, and he lives too far away for me to justify visiting just to help him. I thank you for all your help though.

Z
In response to Zilal
On 8/14/00 9:25 am Zilal wrote:
You'll have to remind me how to get into the system registry.

All that stuff with startup disks and MS-DOS is too complex for my friend, and he lives too far away for me to justify visiting just to help him. I thank you for all your help though.

Z
If your friend isn't happy making a startup disk it would probably be better to avoid playing in the registry (for reference you can do it with regedit.exe in c:/windows). I've just re-read your original mail and it appears the only problem is with the fonts: Have you got your friend to check the modified date for windows/fonts? If these have changed try mailing him a replacement font file for one of them e.g. times new roman and see if it fixes that font. It may be that they have just been overwritten with the 2000 fonts.
In response to Al
On 8/14/00 10:40 am Al wrote:
Have you got your friend to check the modified date for windows/fonts? If these have changed try mailing him a replacement font file for one of them e.g. times new roman and see if it fixes that font. It may be that they have just been overwritten with the 2000 fonts.

Yeah, unfortunately, we tried that and it didn't work... his fonts haven't been modified since '97. And we tried cleaning out some cache or other where fonts are stored for easy usage. It's awful!

Z