Tried to share printer and messed up my computer

[windows]

Hello,
My roomate and I have DSL through comcast and the modem is on her PC and the wireless is on mine. I attempted to share my printer with her so that she could print from her computer to mine. When I tried to do that my pc asked for the windows 98 disk..which I no longer have so I pushed skip it totally messed up my pc. It took off my wireless internet connection and when it rebooted it said welcome to Windows 98 like I just installed the disk..Also my desktop icons are huge it doesnt look the same....what happened? How can I get it back to the way it use to be?

Thanks Oh I have windows 98 and she has windows 2000 proffessional...and if I upgrade my operating system will I loose everything on my pc?

Thanks

[renegade600]

does the screen say anything about safemode.? When you look in windows explorer, does it look like your programs are still there?

Normally an upgrade will not cause you to lose any installed programs but you really need to back up any data you cannot afford to lose just in case.

[Miz]

You can do an over-the-top reinstall of Windows 98 without the CD since you already have it installed.

If you want to use that method rather than upgrading the operating system, go to C:\Windows\Options\Cabs folder and run the "setup.exe" file there. I've done it both from within Windows and from a boot floppy and it worked in both cases.

Then there is a registry edit you can make so that in the future, Win98 will not ask for the Windows CD.

The steps:
1. Go to the Start menu, select Run, and type in regedit, click OK. This will launch the Registry Editor.
2. In the left pane, open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\SETUP.
3. In the right pane, scroll down to "SourcePath" - double-click on it.
4. Change the path (i.e. E:\win98cd\win98) to your own setup directory (usually C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\). Note: You must have the backslash at the end of your path.
5. Close regedit