Windows down. Need to recover emails from dead email client.

[Rand0mNumbers]

I have a Windows 98SE machine that absolutely refuses to boot into the GUI. Now, why would I even deal with this? Simple. There is a Compuserve email client installed on the machine that I need to access and recover emails from. I no longer have the install disks (this was back when they were floppies) and, considering I no longer have an account with Compuserve , any emails on the server are long gone.

I've made an image of the machines hdd, created a backup of it, and set it up to run in VirtualBox. Additionally, I can mount the image in 7 to extract what files I want, but I'm skittish about messing with install cds when they can access my pc's boot record.

I've tried "step-by-step confirmation" and found that the install always halts when it reaches anthook.386, whether loading it or not. Using PCRESTOR doesn't work (still crashes) and "scanreg /fix" fails. Windows 2000 only installs alongside and I can't get XP to do an upgrade install when booting from the CD.

1: Is there any other way to fix this 98 install? (Reinstall 98 whilst saving settings, getting XP to upgrade install from boot, etc)
2: If not, is there a way to extract the registry entries for the client, copy the client's program directory, and insert it into a working Windows installation?

For 2, text editors barely make sense of the registry .dat's, so is there a program that can open them, much like Regedit, or is there some special location I have to place them for 7's regedit to enable loading hives (run as admin doesn't enable the function)?

EDIT:
I'd restore from a working backup, but there are some emails that came in after the last backup with the machine going down before the next backup.