[Bug 2530] Win 98 File System Destroyed

[Wine Bugs]

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2530

------- Additional Comments From [e-mail]  2004-23-10 20:29 -------
After removing an earlier version of Wine, which I had not yet used, I
downloaded and installed the latest version.  Before configuring the program or
reading the Readme File, I clicked the Wine Reboot program.  Error message boxes
started popping up indicating problems in my Windows 98 file system.  Becoming
concerned, I closed the error message boxes and the Wine program down as soon as
I could.  I logged off Linux and into Windows 98.  To my shock, 80% of the icons
on my Windows desktop had disappeared.  I opened explorer to find my program
files had been moved to a directory labeled !$!$!$!$.pfr. and other files and
directories were listed under Program Files.  Other directories and
subdirectories were also renamed with similar file names.

I posted my problem on a wine news group.  A few good people responded with
helpful comments.  One of those comments led me to a program writen by Andreas
Mohr titled "decorrupt_explorer", which seems to have been writen for this very
situation. Not having any programing experience, I have spent 20 to 30 hours
over past couple of week trying to execute this program and fix my Windows
partition, without success.  At this point, it may not be possible.

It seems this problem with Wine has existed for years.  Your Bug Report # 923
mentions this problem.  It also indicated that this problem was caused by
Windows explorer, not Wine.  I don't believe this is true.  Whatever happened,
it was triggered by Wine not Windows.

Since this problem destroys, at least temporarily, a users Windows System, I
would think someone would find it important enough to PROMINENTLY CAUTION
usophisticated users,like me, of what can happen. Furthermore, perhaps someone
could provide some instructions for using Mr. Mohr's program,
"decorrupt_explorer".  I couldn't get it to work.  I cut and pasted it into a
shell every way I could think of.  Nothing seems to work.  Its been more that 3
weeks since I have been able to use Windows.

It may be too late for me, but perhaps its not too late to try to prevent this
from happening to someone else.