Windows 95
Setup uses Safe Recovery to determine what caused an installation to fail. Safe Recovery uses the information available in DETCRASH.LOG, for example, to avoid performing detection on the same device that caused Setup to fail before.
You can also use the SETUPLOG.TXT, DETLOG.TXT, and BOOTLOG.TXT files in the root directory of the boot drive to determine why Setup failed. These text files contain, respectively, the Safe Recovery and hardware detection information in a readable form, plus a log of system startup actions. SETUPLOG.TXT, for example, will show the point at which Setup failed.
To automatically scan these log files for installation or detection errors, you can use the following commands in a setup script. Create a batch file containing the following text and run it from the from the root directory of the boot drive (C:\) after an unsuccessful Setup attempt.
@echo off
echo "Entries found in Setuplog.txt" > log.txt
find /i /n "installtype" setuplog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "installdir" setuplog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "detection" setuplog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "runningapp" setuplog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "rootfilesrenamed" setuplog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "error" setuplog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "failed" setuplog.txt >> log.txt
echo "Entries found in Bootlog.txt" >> log.txt
find /i /n "fail" bootlog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "error" bootlog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "dynamic load success" bootlog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "initcomplete success" bootlog.txt >> log.txt
echo "Entries found in Detlog.txt" >> log.txt
find /i /n "avoidmem" detlog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "detected" detlog.txt >> log.txt
find /i /n "error" detlog.txt >> log.txt
cls
type log.txt |moreFor more information about how Safe Recovery and hardware detection work, and about the contents of the log files, see Chapter 6, "Setup Technical Discussion."