boot problem win98

eoinf

i have an old pc running win98 i just use for word power point ect but its finally kicked the bucket and i cant seem to fix it. during the boot sequence after it detects the harddrives it seems to try and start windows and the it pops up that wininit.exe is corrupt a load of ansi style characters ã¹|·¶»º$%& ect appear and then the pc just pwers down. i can get into msdos and ive ran avg dos version it would be pretty up to date and it can detect any virus.but still no resolution

any suggestions
cheers

eoin f

optiplexgx270

if you dont care for it reinstall from CD.

eoinf

would love to but i dont have the original win98 cd i have a differnet one will it mater if the reg keys are differnet from the original install to the disc i have

optiplexgx270

reg key should/will work (if there windows 98 keys) and if it doesnt ill find you one :P

the keys work off some secret algroithmn and are generated and then checked by the disk. So what im saying is the numbers themselves are not on the disk just the algo. and all keys must conform to the same algo.

MrNuked

probably not. (edit: as in it probably won;t matter)

Another possibility might be to download another winnit file maybe