Formatting C drive but not whole HDD

[ashu888ashu888]

Hey guys, i knw tat wen i format my C Drive wich contains WIN XP OS, i will install the OS again in this same partition, but wat i find is tat wen i install a fresh copy then all the programs wich are on my otehr drives are PRESENT but they are not listed in the Start>All programs section.

As a result of wich, if i hv to start Winamp then i hv to go to that particular drive and then to the winamp folder adn then double clik the winamp icon to start the player.

So i wann ask tat, how can i resore these settings tat even after reinstalling the OS on my C Drive, i can get the same list of all programs in my start menu as well. Are these settings saved in C: >Document & Settings ?? pelase advice me as i dnt wanan reinstall all those s/wares again jus to bring them onto the start menu (a.k.a Start>All Programs)

Cheers n e-peace.....

[Vishal Gupta]

Right-click on Start button and select Open and copy all files/folders from Programs folder.

Do the same thing for Open All users. (Some items may be duplicate, just replace them.)

And after reinstalling the XP, just copy the backed-up items again in Programs folder (Just as we did for taking backup).

[k_blues24]

Hi Ashu,
Vishal is right, Do It as he said

[executioner]

but the programs won't be in the registry.so the won't apper in the "add remove programs"

[thadhanihemant]

exactly the programs won't appear in the add/remove program
and u can't uninstall those..

[sakumar79]

Most programs wont even run when you try this. One reason is that registry wont have necessary entries. Even more importantly, many programs write files into Windows and System32 folders. These are mainly dll files, ini files, etc. When these are lost, the program will not work.

Therefore, you have to reinstall all programs to get them to work properly.

Otherwise, you can take a Drive Image backup of the system after a fresh reinstall with all the necessary programs installed and then use the backup when needed.

Arun

[Vishal Gupta]

My answer was for the programs, which can run without reinstalling them, like winamp, winRAR, etc. coz these programs automatically create their required registry entries when we run them in a new windows.

What u can do is just do what I told and if some programs give ERROR or don't run properly, then reinstall them.

Or do as what sakumar79 suggested, first install a fresh windows, install the programs which u need and then create an image of the parttion using Acronis or Norton Ghost. But there r 2 things which u should keep in mind!

1st, u hv to install all software on same drive, on which u hv installed windows coz u'll take backup of the windows partition.

2nd is that to make it to do work, u'll hv to first install windows and all the softwares once, then after it whenever u face some problems in windows, u can simply restore the backed up image...