Missing Picture Viewer for Windows 98?

Infopackets Reader S. Doe writes:

" I somehow inadvertently deleted Windows 98 'Picture Viewer' from my computer. Windows came pre-installed on my computer and I have all of the discs that came with it, and I think Picture Viewer is there somewhere. How do I figure out on which disk I can find it to reinstall that program? None of them list it specifically on the disk. Thanks in advance for your help! "

My Response:

If your computer came with a pre-installed copy of Windows, there is a good chance that the discs that also came with it may only contain a recovery disk image and will not have a full (standard) version of Windows present. Then again, it might have the Windows .CAB files located somewhere on the disc in an obscurely named directory. I base this statement on the fact that I've used Dell Recovery CDs in the past and had a hard time locating the Windows install directory.

Side note: Disk imaging software is used to "snapshot" a computer's operating system while it is in a healthy state (usually after Windows has been freshly installed). Once a computer stops working properly (due to a Virus / Worm / Trojan / Spyware / .DLL Hell / etc), a disk image can be used to restore the computer to a previously healthy state in a matter of minutes -- rather than having to format the hard drive, reinstall windows, reinstall all program files. In my opinion, Disk Imaging is essential software that should be apart of everyone's software library. Not too long ago, I wrote an article on disk imaging. You can read about it here:

Acronis True Image v8.0 Review

Getting back to the question: is there a way to restore Picture Viewer?

The truth is, I had a hard time trying to find help on this issue.

I searched Google for "picture viewer windows 98" and the first few results didn't really point to anything concrete. I also visited the Microsoft Knowledge Base and only found something related to Windows XP Picture and Fax viewer. And finally, I went to Annoyances.org (a very excellent web site), but came up empty-handed.

It's been a while since I've used Windows 98 and none of my machines at home have it installed, but I'll try to explain how I would go about restoring Picture Viewer in this case:

1. Determine which of the discs that came with your computer have Microsoft .CAB files. The .CAB files are compressed (much like a .ZIP file) and one of them will contain the executable (.EXE file) for Picture Viewer. To determine which disc has the Windows cabs (hopefully one of them does): Insert each disc that came with your PC into your CD ROM drive and search for .CAB files. To do this: Go to Start -> Search / Find -> Files / Folders, and type in *.CAB as the file name. Choose your CD ROM drive as the source search drive, and click the OK / Search button. If successful, a bunch of .CAB files should appear on the screen. You should have some called win98_01.cab or something similar.  
2. When you locate your Windows .CAB files, note the Folder location on CD.  
3. Now you're ready to reinstall Picture Viewer. Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add / Remove Programs. Click on the Windows Setup tab, and search each sub-listing for Picture Viewer. I believe one sub-heading is called "Multimedia", and that might be a good place to start.  
4. Once you've located Picture Viewer, ensure that it has a checkmark beside it and click OK. Have your CD ROM ready with the .CAB files: you may also need to click the Browse Button and navigate to the CD and directory where your .CAB files are stored so that Windows can extract the appropriate file.

That should do it.