Probably a dumb question - reinstalling programs

[Inventor3006]

It's a long and horrible story -- the OS took a long and permanent vacation then
after rebuilding and reinstalling the new OS and 185+ Programs --- THE HARD
DRIVE CRASHED!!! (Brand New!)

SO.... I've got all the programs installed on other drives all I had to do is reinstall the OS
on the 'C' drive.

The question is: Is there a way to get XP Pro Sp3 to see all those programs "WITHOUT"
have to go thru reinstalling everything all over again. (Finding all the keys is a real PAIN!)

Grandpa Bill

[CLiNT]

For the vast majority of programs you'll end up having to reinstall them, largely due to their registry associations.

[Deadeye81]

Grandpa Bill,

It won't help your current situation, but it might at some future time. There is an old utility that is compatible with XP called Emergency Recovery Utility for NT, aka ERUNT, and is available for download on various sites including PCWorld here . ERUNT, when installed, can be set up to automatically backup your entire registry on a daily basis. Each backup is stored in a subfolder named ERDNT under the Windows folder. Within each backup is a self contained executable that can be run to restore the registry hives within that backup set. Two or three backups can be easily stored on a bootable CD or USB flash drive in case of need for a quick registry restoration. The key is to make copies of several backups in case your hard drive becomes inaccessible. And it is free, so it is easy on the budget; just requires some diligence.

In a situation like your current one, if you are reinstalling the original OS (including Service Packs and updates equal to the original install), you might be able to restore one of the latest registry backups made before your hard drive failure and find your existing installation of programs will work fine without having to reinstall them all. There are of course no guarantees, but hey, it is worth a shot, and in the meantime has benefits as well.

Of course, maintaining current image backups of you OS is a simple piece of insurance for the future as well, even if it is a more expensive alternative.

The ERUNT home site is here, and you can check their FAQs for work arounds in relation to Vista and Windows 7.

[Medico]

Hey Grandpa Bill,

Sorry but this time you will most likely have to reload everything. Use this as a possitive. This will be a great opportunity to thin out apps that are rarely if ever used. Gerald must be a faster typer than I am. Iwas going to mention ERUNT. I used this all the time when I regularly used XP.

I see on the ERUNT web site that a version for Win 7 is almost ready for prime time. (The version presently available for Win 7 has some problems yet.) That's good to know since it provides a very easy way to back up the registry. Good Luck Grandpa Bill form another granddpa, Ted

[jim_from_oz]

I concur with Ted Myers. I was forced into a reformat and reinstall after I tried to create more space by replacing files with short cuts and lost my desktop. It is a tedious operation but from my perspective, having 2+ GBytes of free space is very liberating after coping for years with 300- Mbytes ! Be brave and take the opportunity to re-architect your system !

[Katz]

For the future: I keep my programs on the C Drive with the OS., so my backup clone is of the whole ball of wax, registry, .ini files etc. Only my data is on the 2nd partition and 3rd partition.