In Windows 98 you don’t have the easy-to-use System Restore interface or its ability to restore application software. Instead, you have the Registry Checker, which automatically backs up your Registry files each day as you shutdown (one reason why following Windows’ standard shutdown procedure is important). The backups are stored in the Windows\Sysbckup folder as .cab files named rbxxx.cab, where xxx is the number of the backup – 001, 002, and so on. These numbers don’t reflect the actual dates that the files were backed up, however. If you're looking for the most recent backup, check the modification date of the files in Windows Explorer.
By default, Registry Checker saves only the backups made in the last five days. Since it can take more than five days to discover a problem, it’s best to increase that number. You can set up to a maximum of 99 backups (and change other settings) by opening the file scanreg.ini in Notepad and changing the MaxBackupCopies= setting. It’s best to keep at least a month of backups. Of course, the more copies you keep, the more disk space you consume – you may need up to 3MB for each backup. But the sacrifice is worth it if you can spare the disk space.
You can emulate Windows Me’s System Restore by manually backing up your files before each major “event.” From Start Run, type scanreq.exe and select Yes when prompted to make a backup. Doing so creates one of the above-mentioned .cab files with an alphanumeric name. Rename the file in Windows Explorer so it’s easily identified and not overwritten as part o the normal .cab file rotation.
Registry Checker can’t back up all your applications, but it can back up more than just the Registry files. By default, Registry Checker stores the system.dat and user.dat Registry files, as well as two old Windows 3.1 files: system.ini and win.ini (for backwards compatibility). You can add other files to the list – autoexec.bat and config.sys are recommended – by editing the last line of scanreg.ini. Don’ forget to remove the leading semicolon to activate the change.
To restore your backup files, restart your PC in DOS mode and enter scanreg at the DOS prompt. If you try to run scanreg from within Windows using either Start-Run or a DOS window, what you will actually be running is a different program – wscanreg – which backs up only the Registry files.
When you run scanreg, you’ll see a list of your backup files. Pick your desired file and it will be restored. Any files with altered, non alphanumeric names, such as the “event" files described above, won't appear on the list. To restore these files you must open Windows Explorer, find the desired .cab file in the Windows\Sysbckup folder, and double-click it. You’ll see a list of all the files stored in that .cab file. Copy the files you want to restore over the originals – in other words, save them with the same name in the same directory – and reboot. - "PC World Magazine"

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