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A Cool Diagnostic Tool is Hidden on the Win95B CD-ROM

Keywords:   OSR2 OEM Service Release 2 Windows 95B CD-ROM hwdiag.exe  

This information courtesy of Brian Livingston, via www.infoworld.com, May 19, 1997.
A handy, virtually unknown diagnostic tool called HWDIAG.EXE resides in a noncompressed, executable form on the Windows 95B CD-ROM. You can run it from the CD or simply copy it to your hard drive and run it from there. Its location on the CD is:
	D:\OTHER\MISC\HWTRACK
where D: is the letter of your CD-ROM drive. It works on Win95, 95A, or 95B.

Windows 95B, as you may know, is a version of Windows that Microsoft hasn't made available as a commercial upgrade from Windows 95 or 95A. Under Microsoft's licensing terms, you can get it only from an OEM dealer with the purchase of a new computer system, a new motherboard, or a hard drive. For details on OSR2, one good source is a Web site maintained at Details on OSR2.

Once you have OSR2 and you can access HWDIAG.EXE, however, there are many ways this little tool can be useful to you.

HWDIAG.EXE lists every key in the Windows Registry that refers to hardware in your system. The entries are color-coded to make the display easier to decipher. Registry entries are displayed in green, and file attributes (path and date information for drivers, for example) are in magenta. Error messages and warnings are displayed in red and blue, respectively.

The information in HWDIAG.EXE isn't intended for beginners, but if you know a little about interrupts and drivers this tool can be very helpful.

One example usage of this tool is to find how many modems are installed in your system's Registry, and how many of those are disabled. In so doing, you can remove bogus entries to help with the installation of a new Win-modem.


Article ID:   W13900
Filename:   Hardware Diagnostic Tool on Win95B OSR2 CD-ROM.txt
File Created: 2001:01:23:14:18:16
Last Updated: 2001:01:23:14:18:16