You may want to try using the system.1st file renamed as system.dat with attributes of system, hidden, read-only. This is the registry as of the time of Win95 install. If you haven't done to many boots this is a system.da0 which is the roll back copy from the last registry updates performed. To muck around with these files boot into safe mode command prompt only and modify the ATTRIBs
ATTRIB -R -S -H c:\windows\system.dat ... da0
copy da0 over dat
ATTRIB +R +S +H c:\windows\system.dat ... da0
and hope.

You should make ERU diskette for the systems after any major software install. Norton has a passable registry tracker utility. In the end we always seem to need to reinstall but use the above to salvage as much as possible.
HTH
Gary