Deth Muncher: Luddite With a Tumblr (Read: Compuderp)

[Deth Muncher]

Okay seriously here. I'm almost 22 years old. I use the computer daily. I play vidjagames on here. I go on Facebook and Tumblr. I write essays on here. So HOW is it I know nothing about how to make computers work right?

Here's what happened. So, my school tells me "Hey, did you know we'll give you a free Windows 7 Ultimate License, just because you're a student here?" And I go "Shucks golly, boss! My old desktop here is lightyears behind in operating systems! And with all this money I've sunk into it lately, having it have a good, new operating system sounds lovely!" So I download the updater program. And it tells me "Hey dummy, you can't just update and replace things, your OS is too old. You're gonna have to install a whole new Windows." And I go "Well hey computer, you know what's best. You do your thang." And it does! And now I have this fancy new operating system...and can't do anything that is already loaded on the computer. Now, I know that everything that was on my C drive before got moved to the Windows.old folder. Which is great! But apparently, you can't just drag that Program Files folder into the new Program Files folder in the same place and have it work correctly. In fact, only some of my programs work right right now - many of them are glitchy, if they run at all.

So I ask you, Playground, what do I do? Is there an easy way to do this? Or do I just have to reinstall everything? Also, this is doubly bad, since I have an extra internal harddrive, and now IT won't let me load programs off of it correctly either, despite having all this data stored in it (like Steam, for example).

[tyckspoon]

Or do I just have to reinstall everything?

Probably. Short form: Most programs don't actually know where they are and how to start themselves when you install them- that information is saved in a separate master file (this is, for the most part, the Registry you may have had reason to delve into if you ever got unlucky with a virus.) When you install a new OS or even just reinstall the one you already had, it will typically build a new master list of what's on the computer, and that new list will not include the programs you already had- while all the necessary data is still there, the instructions on how to use it aren't. So you'll probably have to reinstall most of your stuff.
(This is really stupid and Microsoft no longer encourages programmers to install stuff in this fashion, but it's still around and used to be the 'right' way to do it, so you probably have a lot of things that were made that way.)

On the plus side, you should mostly only have to install the base program- for example, you'll likely need to reinstall Steam, but once you've done that you can move the actual game files into the new Steam folders and they should be recognized and playable without actually having to reinstall Steam. Similarly, if your media-manager-program-of-choice has gone weird you'll want to reinstall it, but it should be able to work with your actual music/videos/whatever from wherever they are on your hard drives.

[Deth Muncher]

Probably. Short form: Most programs don't actually know where they are and how to start themselves when you install them- that information is saved in a separate master file (this is, for the most part, the Registry you may have had reason to delve into if you ever got unlucky with a virus.) When you install a new OS or even just reinstall the one you already had, it will typically build a new master list of what's on the computer, and that new list will not include the programs you already had- while all the necessary data is still there, the instructions on how to use it aren't. So you'll probably have to reinstall most of your stuff.
(This is really stupid and Microsoft no longer encourages programmers to install stuff in this fashion, but it's still around and used to be the 'right' way to do it, so you probably have a lot of things that were made that way.)

On the plus side, you should mostly only have to install the base program- for example, you'll likely need to reinstall Steam, but once you've done that you can move the actual game files into the new Steam folders and they should be recognized and playable without actually having to reinstall Steam. Similarly, if your media-manager-program-of-choice has gone weird you'll want to reinstall it, but it should be able to work with your actual music/videos/whatever from wherever they are on your hard drives.

Gahhh. My one big worry here is that a lot of these folders are just long strings of numbers and letters, presumably because whatever program put them there knows what they are - but I don't. And looking in them doesn't help, of course. So then it's like "Do I try copying this somewhere? Do I leave it?" And then I melt into a puddle of slag.

[memnarch]

"Hey, did you know we'll give you a free Windows 7 Ultimate License, just because you're a student here?"

Spotted the key flaw here. I hate Windows 7 - it's amazingly unfriendly to use. As a general rule, upgrading from one OS to another is a massive pain in the neck - I usually do a full wipe and install from a CD or USB. That way, there's no detritus left on the hard disk to confuse either the new version or the old version of the OS.

This is an amazingly unhelpful comment.



Deth; Yes, you'll need to reinstall most of your programs. However, try to look at it as being a free removal of programs you hardly used. It might help a bit. Also, with the folders labeled with long strings of numbers and letters, are the folders inside them the same way?

[Deth Muncher]

Deth; Yes, you'll need to reinstall most of your programs. However, try to look at it as being a free removal of programs you hardly used. It might help a bit. Also, with the folders labeled with long strings of numbers and letters, are the folders inside them the same way?

Well, not exactly. The one that it will actually let me open (which I find strange, as I have administrator privelages) contains things like "baseline.dat" or fifty different EULA files, locdata files, etc. I understand this likely means that it's for a game, but I don't know which one it could be for.

[Gnoman]

I'm pretty sure that's the registry backup. IIRC, windows.old is just Windows, not a complete backup.