Reinstall Windows, but keep all your programs?

O

oregon

Active Member
I've been having pretty minor issues, and recently I can not get iTunes to uninstall which annoys me. Its been about nine months since I set up my computer, and was thinking of reinstalling Windows.

Is there an easy/automated way of doing it? I don't really want to reinstall all my programs and games etc. because that would take a long time and wouldn't really be worth it.
 
I think a good way would be to partition your drive. Also, if im not wrong, assuming you're running on XP, XP has some kind of repair function where it reinstall windows but leave programs intact. I think i did that once. Can't remember what it is though.
 
I have vista. But what would partitioning do for reinstalling? Have Windows on one partition and the programs on the other?
 
oregon said:
I have vista. But what would partitioning do for reinstalling? Have Windows on one partition and the programs on the other?
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yeah, i was suggesting that but i suppose backing up an image of the drive is better
 
I realized that you can just copy the program files folder to another drive and run them from there. I ended up doing that with my large programs like Steam.
 
That is not a good idea. Most programs keep their settings and important data in the registries which are wiped when reinstalling windows. But you could try rewriting the windows' files with a reinstall, if you have problems with them.

But you can save registry settings (from regedit go to File - Export). But there may be lots of garbage that gave trouble to windows. Because finding the registry files for a single program is very painstaking and time consuming: a single program can have keys or values spread everywhere, and is hard to find.
 
Oregon, what happens to registry items if you just copy or move your program folder to another drive? Wouldn't it get corrupted?
 
oregon said:
I don't really want to reinstall all my programs and games etc. because that would take a long time and wouldn't really be worth it.
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To do a true, clean reinstall, you'll have to reinstall all your programs and games. I usually backup all my game save data, reinstall the games and restore the data into the appropriate directory. Yes, it is time consuming, but that's the best method.
 
neogamer said:
Oregon, what happens to registry items if you just copy or move your program folder to another drive? Wouldn't it get corrupted?
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If you move your program folder location then all of the shortcuts wouldn't work, and several apps will have issues as the registry entries would be pointing to the old location.
 
I ended up doing it with just Steam, and it seems to be okay, though I did have to create new shortcuts of course. I would have reinstalled Steam except that I don't own any of the game discs and so redownloading all my games would have taken FOREVER. On a side note, I know that steam has a backup content feature, but I haven't seen anywhere how to actually reinstall the backed up content. Do you guys know how to reinstall from backed up content?

I'm still having a persistent issue with steam/team fortress 2. When I open it, it goes through the Valve screen with the guys head, and then when the team fortress music is about to start, it minimizes to windows, then opens back up a second later, then minimizes, then opens up, and just keeps on doing that. I can however, open up task manager which causes it to stay minimized, and from there I can just click to open it and it works perfectly. Anyone else have this issue, or know why?
 
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oregon said:
On a side note, I know that steam has a backup content feature, but I haven't seen anywhere how to actually reinstall the backed up content. Do you guys know how to reinstall from backed up content?
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I think you click on the properties of the given game, select the local files tab, then select restore backup. Not sure, though; I always manually backup/restore my entire steamapps>mep916 folder.
 
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