This message is not a question but a hopeful-solution to a common problem I've seen. I hope this helps some of you searching on this one: When booting Win98 an black screen comes up that simply says "Error loading user.exe. You must reinstall Windows." It seems like this happens in a couple different ways for different people, but that's what it looks like for me. I'm a PC support tech for a government office, and a laptop here was having this problem. I did NOT want to reinstall the OS on this laptop, so I did a huge amount of research on this problem. Besides, based on the research I did, I learned that a reinstall didn't necessarily fix the problem for everyone. Everyone on this site and many others keeps referencing the well-known Microsoft support article at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/Q243/3/72.asp&NoWebContent=1 This is a good first attempt at fixing it, but I have yet to see anyone, myself included, whose problem was solved with this "solution". Restoring the ddeml.dll file from the cabs on any Windows CD simply doesn't fix it. Many other users also allude to hardware problems (IDE controllers/cable, memory modules, etc) that are causing the errors. This may be the case for them, but it was not for me. It seems to me that the problem occurs after a registry corruption of some sort. A software install gone bad or someone playing with something they shouldn't have. TO FIX THIS PROBLEM, I restored a backup copy of the system registry. This is a very easy process and will most likely work. To do so, simply: - Boot to the DOS prompt (hold F8 at bootup and choose Command Prompt Only, or simply use a boot floppy) - Navigate to the \Windows directory (c:> CD \windows) - Type "edit scanreg.ini" (no quotes) - Look for a line that says "MaxBackupCopies=___" - It will probably be set by default to 5 copies. I increased mine to 10 (if I didn't it would give me an error when I tried to restore the backup because it would attempt to overwrite the backups or something. This might not even happen in your case, or you might have to set it to a higher number. Just give it a try.) - Save changes and exit - Navigate to the \windows\command directory - Type "scanreg /restore" (no quotes) - Choose a backup date old enough to be a clean copy but not so old that it would be too outdated (if possible). At worst choose the oldest one simply to insure a clean version. - If you get an error that says "System Restore Failed" or something like that, edit that scanreg.ini file again. There's a good Microsoft article on this at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;245412 - If it gives you message along the lines of "Backup successful - no errors found", you should be good to go. Just restart and cross your fingers. If you manage to restore the registry to a clean version and it still doesn't fix this problem, I don't know the solution. It may be hardware related. Experiment with your BIOS settings (cache, virus protection, IDE controllers, etc...). This may not be the solution for everyone, but it worked for me and it's simple enough to try for anyone. Good luck! Jesse

Interesting reading. One thing foxes me though. Fine, you can set to increase the number of registry backups that Windows makes (well W98 that is) but there will still only be the 5 oldies there after you have done this. It won't "produce" extra backups "from the past". New backups will appear on every boot day but presumably will still have the corruption. Noted that scanreg /restore was used to cure this. Widely known obviously but I accept it might not have been the first thing that came to mind for "this particular problem" - useful info. Derek.W

Thanks Jesse that did the trick!! Bit of a useless error, and Microsoft's KB is as helpful as ever! Cheers Mat