REINSTALLING THE ORIGINAL DRIVERS

If you've ever updated the driver for a device on your Windows 9x computer (e.g., a printer or modem), you may have encountered a situation where the new driver doesn't work and you wish that you had stayed with the original. Windows 9x, however, doesn't always make it easy to reinstall the original drivers that came with the installation media. If you're experiencing this problem, try the following work around (the example given assumes that a printer is causing the trouble):

1. Uninstall the printer, along with any utility programs that came with it.

2. Find the .inf file(s) for the driver of the printer you just uninstalled. (It may be in the \windows\inf folder and recognizable by its name, date, or details in its properties pages.)

3. Rename the file(s) to Filename.old (where Filename is the current filename).

4. Rename the \windows\inf\drvdata.bin and drvidx.bin files to filenames with .old extensions also.

Now, when you go to reinstall the printer, the driver information database should be rebuilt with a dialog box asking you to wait. When this is completed, you should be able to install the original drivers again.