What is process for reinstalling windows 95?

[fran via WindowsKB.com]

What is process for reinstalling windows 95. I, have an old
computer I'm donating...and I wiped it and reformated, but now I can't get
windows 95 to open, only dos prompts. and I don't know that much about dos.
I have cd I got several years ago from e-bay for reinstalling, and diskette,
but have forgotten procedures in the meantime. (!!!) I would like to load
the windows 95 back on, and put on the office 95 I have too, so the next
person can put the computer to good use.

unfortunately, every reference to windows 95 install is over my head....
guess the writers assume I should know what they're talking about! and I
don't!!!!

--
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[RobertVA]

fran via WindowsKB.com wrote:
> What is process for reinstalling windows 95. I, have an old
> computer I'm donating...and I wiped it and reformated, but now I can't get
> windows 95 to open, only dos prompts. and I don't know that much about dos.
> I have cd I got several years ago from e-bay for reinstalling, and diskette,
> but have forgotten procedures in the meantime. (!!!) I would like to load
> the windows 95 back on, and put on the office 95 I have too, so the next
> person can put the computer to good use.
>
> unfortunately, every reference to windows 95 install is over my head....
> guess the writers assume I should know what they're talking about! and I
> don't!!!!

You will need to boot the computer with a floppy disk that is configured
to copy the DOS external commands to a virtual disk AND load CD-ROM
drivers and CD extensions under DOS. Boot floppies made with Windows
95's utility might not feature CD-ROM capabilities, although ones
generated by Windows 98 may. Check out http://www.bootdisk.com/ if you
don't have one.

IF the computer's hard drive doesn't have a partition on it you may need
to create a partition with the interactive FDISK program.

You will then be able to install Windows by running the Setup.exe file
on the CD. Have the CD key available to type in when prompted. Look
CAREFULLY at the CD key to make sure there is no confusion about
characters like capital "b" and eight, capital "i" lower case "L" and
one or capital "o" and zero.

I prefer to create a second partition of a couple of Gigabytes, copy the
windows installation cabinet files there and install thee OS from the
hard drive. That partition can later be used for a page file that won't
get fragmented by normal boot partition use. Installing from a hard
drive partition eliminates the need to insert the Windows 95 CD into the
drive when new peripherals are connected to the system as well.