I am reformatting my hard drive. What folders within Windows 98 are
all driver files and
.ini files located in?

Dear goaliefn,

Running a Win98 system myself, I must warn you that installed programs
store their *.ini and *.drv files very individually. A large share of
the *.drv files can be found in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ and a number of
sub-folders. These sub-folders are created by the program during the
installation process. Many other drivers are located in similar
sub-folders of C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\. Other drivers again are not stored in
the Windows directory at all, but inside the directory of the program
they belong to. For instance, the drivers of my Creative Labs
Soundblaster are in C:\Programs\Creative\CTSND\DRV.

With the *.ini files, everything is even worse. Many *.ini are stored
directly in C:\WINDOWS, others in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM and there also,
just like the drivers, in various sub-folders set up by the programs.
And just as if that were not enough, certain *.ini files are,
seemingly without any system, spread over other folders in drive C:\.

And this is only the situation for C:\ - lots of *ini files are stored
in the individual program installations on all hard disks of the PC.

To detect all your *.drv and *.ini files, please do the following:

- Click on the 'Start' button in your taskbar.
- Choose 'Search', and 'Files / Folders'. 
- In the box that pops up then, enter *.ini in the 'Name' search
field, then pick the 'Local hard drives' in the 'Search in'-pulldown
menu.
- Click on 'Start'.

You will get a list of all *.ini files in your system and their
locations. Do the same to locate all drivers by entering *.drv. Now
you know where your special computer system has its drivers and *.ini
files.

Please be careful - making backups of these files and re-copying them
into your system after formatting and reinstalling Windows and other
programs might cause unpredictable malfunctions!

Hope this helps!
Regards,
Scriptor

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Request for Answer Clarification by goaliefn-ga on 25 Jul 2002 16:50 PDT

Scriptor,

Are you basically telling me that once I locate all my drv and ini
files that I should not back them up since I should not reload them
after a formating?

If so, what is the best procedure to follow in this case?

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Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 26 Jul 2002 09:10 PDT

Dear goaliefn,

You may backup these files and copy them back after re-installing your
system. My advice, however, is: When re-installing your programs after
successfully formatting the hard disk, make sure that the software
erased during the formatting process is re-installed exactly as it was
before. This means, do not put programs in other directories etc. In
order to minimize possible risks to an acceptable amount, make a list
how and where the programs on the HD you are going to format are
installed.

Regards,
Scriptor

Your researcher gave a very complete and logical answer. Thanks.