finding previously installed programs

[Guest]

Older versions of Windows had a utility that would search for programs
already on the hard drive.

I had to reload XP because of a burp, but when I go to "All Programs",
they're not shown, nor are the shortcuts on my desktop. If I go through "My
Computer", they are there.

What do I do?

 

[Guest]

Older versions of Windows had a utility that would search for programs
already on the hard drive.

I had to reload XP because of a burp, but when I go to "All Programs",
they're not shown, nor are the shortcuts on my desktop. If I go
through "My
Computer", they are there.

If you reloaded (i.e., resinstalled) the operating system instead of
repairing or upgrading it, you now have a new instance of the registry.
The registry files are at the same state as they would be for any fresh
install of Windows, and that means all your programs are unknown within
the registry. You wiped so you got a fresh registry. Some programs may
allow reinstalling them atop of themselves without losing any current
config files, but any settings they saved in the registry were lost.