How to Uninstall Windows 95

• Microsoft Windows 95

SUMMARY

This article describes how to uninstall, or remove, Windows 95.

MORE INFORMATION

Windows 95 has an Uninstall feature you can use to restore the previous version of Windows and MS-DOS on your computer. You can use this feature only if you upgraded an earlier version of Windows to Windows 95, and you chose to back up the system files during the upgrade.

When you choose to back up the system files, the original Windows folder and all its files and folders are saved in a hidden, compressed file. The location of this file is specified in the "UnInstallDir=" line in the Msdos.sys file.

To uninstall Windows 95, follow these steps:

1. In Control Panel, double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon.

2. On the Install/Uninstall tab, click Windows 95 in the list of programs, and then click Add/Remove.

3. In the dialog box that appears, click Yes.

4. Click Yes to remove long filename support and check the hard disk.

5. Click OK to shut down Windows 95 and continue.

6. Remove any floppy disks from the floppy disk drives, and then press ENTER to continue.

   Filename      Purpose
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------
   W95undo.dat   Contains a compressed backup of the Windows 3.x folder.
   W95undo.ini   Contains a listing of files backed up in the W95undo.dat
                 file.
   Msdos.sys     Contains an entry pointing to the location of the
                 W95undo.dat and W95undo.ini files.
   Suhdlog.dat   Contains a copy of all Master Boot Records and Partition
                 Boot Records on the system both before and after the
                 upgrade to Windows 95. Used to restore the original
                 boot sectors.

Note that there are three other methods you can use to uninstall Windows 95. These methods are:

• Start you computer with a Windows 95 Startup disk and then run Uninstal.exe.
• Start your computer to a command prompt, or to the previous operating system, and then run Uninstal.exe.
• Click the Start button, click Run, and then type "uninstal.exe" in the Open box.

REFERENCES

For information about manually removing Windows 95, please see the "Microsoft Windows 95 Resource Kit."