Calum,

I think you're right.

I hate to say it but in this case I knew I was right. :-( I did mention
the likelihood of the version of Win Me you were attempting to use as
being a bios locked version in my original post.

I tried your solution of reinstalling from base2.cab and, while the
process completed successfully, it did not change the situation.

What was the situation you were trying to fix? Not that it matters now if
you've blown away the system and are stuck once again with the OEM copy.
It's a shame you didn't make a copy of the Windows\Options\Cabs or
Windows\Options\Install folder before you formatted the disk as you could
have clean installed using these files but sadly it's too late now.

Do you know where I could get this file from?

Not legally I'm sorry to say. Microsoft couldn't help even if they wanted
to as all copies of their operating systems that included the MS JavaVM
(which includes Win Me) have been removed from MSDN and are no longer
permitted to be distributed as part of the agreement between Sun and
Microsoft.
--
Mike Maltby
MS-MVP Windows



calum wrote:

I think you're right.

I tried your solution of reinstalling from base2.cab and, while the
process completed successfully, it did not change the situation.
Perhaps foolishly, I decided to format the drive and try a clean
install. However, I got the same error message: "This version of
Windows ME cannot be installed on your computer. Please obtain the
correct verysion from your computer manufacturer."

After a lot of digging around I found this comment on a tech support
site: "SU0173 is a copy protection feature built in to many vendors
OEM versions
of Windows ME. It blocks installation when it can't validate code
from your vendors bios. This makes it almost impossible to install it
on other machines. We have established that this protection lie in
the precopy1.cab file. Taking this into consideration I discovered
the workaround. All you need to do is copy the contents of the
Windows ME disk to your hard drive. Then replace the precopy1.cab
file in the windows9x folder with a non-vendor specific precopy1.cab.
Then you can burn yourself a fixed copy or run setup from your hard
drive."

I've searched for this non-vendor specific precopy1.cab file but any
link I find is long since dead.

Do you know where I could get this file from?