HOW TO CUSTOMIZE SCANREG
(Win98 & Win ME)
Last updated May 8, 2009
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SCANREG.INI is in C:\Windows, and can be edited with Notepad. Lines preceded by a semicolon (;) are comment lines that give instructions, and that give samples, defaults, and other information.

As you page down through it, you may find many small things you do or do not want to customize. There are only two that I think need serious comment.

MaxBackupCopies=5

You can increase this number. However, I recommend you do not. It seemed like a good idea to give myself 10-15 generations of backup. However, while you can increase it above 5 and they will be stored, they will not show correctly when you attempt to recover them. Only the five oldest backups will show. This defeats the whole purpose! When I want multiple specialized Registry saves in Win98 (say, while working on a project or experimenting with new software), I use ERU from Win95 to do a custom Registry save in a file and folder of my choice. However, ERU doesn’t work correctly in Windows ME, so the preferred option is to use System Restore to create a custom restore point.

Files=

Then, at the very end of the file, you have the chance to add more files it will backup for you. By default, it only backs up SYSTEM.DAT, USER.DAT, SYSTEM.INI, and WIN.INI. (You can click on the RBxxx.CAB files stored in C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP to see what is there.) I prefer to add many of the other files that ERU backs up by default, which include:

C:\CONFIG.SYS
C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
C:\MSDOS.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\PROTOCOL.INI

The instructions at the bottom of the SCANREG.INI file tell you how to do this:

• Code 30 is used for the BootDir (usually C:\).
• Code 10 is used for the WinDir (the Windows directory or folder, which is usually C:\WINDOWS).
• Code 11 is used for the System directory (which is usually C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM).
• Code 31 is used for the Boot Host directory (usually C:\).

Thus, to add CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, MSDOS.SYS, and PROTOCOL.INI to ScanReg’s routine backups, I add the following two lines:

Files=30,CONFIG.SYS,AUTOEXEC.BAT,MSDOS.SYS
Files=10,PROTOCOL.INI

NOTE: This command is case sensitive. Files= works, but files= doesn’t! (Tip from MVP Ron Martell.)

You can also add files from other folders (at least on the BootDir — usually C:), but you need a trick to do it successfully. The trick is to use the full pathname of the file but to preceed it with the 30 prefix to specify the drive. For example, if you want to add the file C:\VIRUS\ORDER.TXT to those files routinely backed up, add the line:

Files=30,virus\order.txt