Oh No! You installed some 16-bit program and it over-wrote too many
   Win95 system files! You need to re-install... or some other disaster
   makes you think you need to re-install.
   
   Not. Win95 has a pretty good defense mechanism against 16-bit programs
   that replace system files, and other disasters. All key system files
   have a backup copy in \WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP (or wherever you installed
   Win95). Most cases, Win95 will detect that system files got
   over-written and it'll offer to copy Win95 versions back. Let it do
   so! This includes any winsock.dll files (You should use Win95's
   dial up networking anyway, not Win 3.1 dialers like Trumpet).
   
   If it doesn't do that, you can always copy them back yourself. Go into
   "Safe mode command prompt only" (Press F8 on "Starting Windows 95..."
   then select said option), then:

XCOPY C:\WIN95\SYSTEM\SYSBCKUP\*.* C:\WIN95\SYSTEM

   from the DOS prompt.
   
   Also, try editing system.ini. Inspect the [386Enh] section for any
   additional device=xxxxx.386 drivers. On a clean Win95 install, you
   shouldn't have ANY of these files. This goes double for any
   "vshare.386" files that show up; Win95 has a built-in device=*vshare
   driver. Removing old Win 3.1 386 Enhanced drivers will clear up many
   problems.
   
   If you get a "Registry corrupted" error of some kind, inspect your
   hard drive for errors. On the requester that tells you to "Restore
   from backup and Restart", press CTRL-ESC to bring up the Win95 task
   manager, and run scandskw.exe from there to check the drive for
   errors. Scandskw does a better job of scanning Win95 drives, and it
   handles long filename problems better than scandisk does at the DOS
   prompt. Once it finishes, you can hit that button to restore the
   Registry and re-start. However, if you continue to get this kind of
   error, start investigating your hard drive system. You might be
   over-driving your HD at Mode 4 when it's not designed for it, for
   example. Or maybe the drive's just on its last legs and dying. Do a
   back up as soon as you can!
   
   This Registry stuff is actually a good reason to use User
   Profiles. Each user will have their own copy of the second half of the
   Registry; the user.dat file. If the master user.dat gets ruined and
   you need to completely re-install, you can bring back your program
   settings for your 32-bit programs just by logging in as one of the
   users. Your hardware (system.dat) config is still toast, but you can
   rebuild that easy enough just by re-running the "Add new hardware"
   control panel.