HELP! XP Reinstall won't see existing files or programs

  • Thread starter Thread starter md
  • Start date Start date
M

md

Please Help! Our home computer all of a sudden would not see the System file
and reboot. It is a PC with Windows XP Home (not SP1) on it. Could not get
it booted.

So, I downloaded the 6-disk XP Boot disks, and booted off that. Tried
Repair, but would not do anything after i hit R and then the c:\windows
location.

So did a reinstall. Went OK.

HOWEVER, Win xp is booting up fine, and if I look at my C: drive I see under
Program Files' all my old programs, but XP doesnt see these. When i
hitStart>All Programs, I only get the few programs that come with XP. Can't
see my Office 2000 programs or Norton or FrontPage etc. When I go into
'Program Files' and into Office folder and try to click directly on Excel or
MS Word, i get the error message saying:

"Must be installed to run. Please run Setup from the location where you
originally installed this application."

How can i reactivate all the programs that are on the HDD to work with the
new XP install? Or, do I have to reinstall everything. Is there any way to
have XP search for programs already on the HDD? Any advice would be greatly
appreciated.

Thank you....Please respond here or to me at: mdibner (at_) bioability (dot)
com

mark
 
Hi Mark,

You will need to reinstall the programs under the new installation. They
need to create necessary registry entries and place files in the system
folder, this is only accomplished by running the installer. It's the same as
if you copied a program folder from one machine to another, it simply won't
work.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
 
Unfortunately when you reinstall Windows, Windows wipes out your old
registry files. (The registry is like a phone book Windows uses to
look up information on what programs are installed, what resources
they need, where they are actually located and what Windows has to do
to make them rum.) Because of the way Windows works, You'll have to
reinstall all your other programs to re-create the registry entries.
The good news is that in most cases you'll be able to recover
documents and files that you created using the programs you lost with
the reinstall.

also replied to by email
 
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