Help! Win 95 not shutting down completely
 

I had forgotten what a pain Win 95 can be when the registry gets untidy.

I have just acquired a second-hand Dell Lattitude CPi A-Series Laptop (233Mhz, 32Mb Memory and a 3GbHDD) which was previously the property of KPMG. KPMG have taken off most all of their application software, but the installed version of Win 95 is still registered to them. They didn't do a particularly brilliant job of removing their application software (bringing up IE still points to their internal home page and I wouldn't be at all surprised if I could log straight in - bet they haven't removed the password).

One problem is that the Admin sections of the BIOS are still password protected (and of course, I don't have the Admin password).

The other (far more irritating) problem is that the bl**dy machine gets to the "Shutting down Win 95 screen" but never actually shuts down - so it !!!!!s all over me when I switch it on again, and proceeds to run Scandisk.

I have been through this all before (several office moves ago) and have now completely forgotten how to get rid of the problem.

As I see it, re-installing Win 95 is one solution (except of course that I don't have a Win 95 installation CD-ROM). Alternatively, I could re-format the hard drive and do a completely fresh install of (probably) Win 98 - the problem being that I might lose any Dell-specific software (especially the drivers for the CD-ROM and maybe the PCMCIA card). I specifically do NOT want to install anything later than Win 98 (I've seen to many cries for help from people upgrading to Win XP etc. Also bearing in mind that this machine is not overly endowed with RAM)

Is there any easier way I can simply clean up the registry to get rid of this problem? I don't have a lot of time available just at the moment, so I'm looking for a quick 'n dirty that will make it usable, pending finding the time to go for a somewhat more long term and permanent solution.

Any suggestions?

hi there, press S when it starts to do the scan disc, it´s all i can say to you!!! cheers
RMM

About the BIOS password....look here

1. Your notebook has to be ACPI compliant - meaning it can shut itself down

2. Reinstall any power management software from Dell's website (model specific)

3. There is a registry hack - can't remember what the key is called.. try searching for "powerdownaftershutdown".. if that doesn't work, try just "power" or "shutdown".. I think it's a simple change from YES to NO.. or something like that. It's been years since I used Win95. Reloading Power mgmt software normally makes this change for you.

Hope that helps.