HELP! I'm Going Crazy With Upgrades & Reinstalls!

[Henry T Fiddler]

I sure hope some of you MVP's have some words of wisdom for me!

It seems every year, that when a drive crashes or I buy a new computer,
I am going to a new opsys. This was not a problem back in the MS-DOS
days. But now, since Win95 the nightmare grows every year it seems.
Used to be I could just backup the whole hard drive, programs and all,
restore from backup on new computer and be up and running in a few
hours. No such luck anymore. Now we have .ini files and registries and
settings, stored hither and yon.

When I get blue screens, memory conflicts, illegal operations, etc. all
the techs tell me to backup all data, reformat, reinstall and then
reinstall all programs & data. Yeah ... right! I generally don't have
a whole week to kill! Then, after I reinstall, I have lost all my
settings, phone numbers from dialers, customized little add-ons that
came with my optical mouse, etc. etc. etc. I end up going into all my
programs and thinking .... "Gee ... this didn't work this way before ...
oh yeah ... I changed this setting 1.3 years ago and forget where to
even go to find where the setting is set, and God only knows what I had
it set to !!!!"

Obviously, I can start a document where I manually keep track of all
these programs, settings, etc. so I remember what they were and where to
re-locate the proper dialog box, tab, and checkbox within that dialog
tab (and then hope I don't forget to update this document for every
single change I make). Then, I can reinstall and re-set faster. But we
are still talking days rather than hours, as it used to be in the "good
old days".

It used to be that each program had 1 to 3 or so little .ini files in
the same folder as the .exe, that would change date/time stamp every
time you changed a setting. You could easily discover these files using
Windows Explorer and back them up, then restore after upgrading, and
bingo ... DONE! But now it seems settings are going into the registry
more and more. Wonderful ... now we have to manually go to the dialogs,
tabs and checkboxes .... very time consuming after a crash, when it is
already hectic enough. And it never gets any better as the years tick
by ... only worse.

I would like to know if Microsoft or any developers have come up with
any way around this nightmare. Perhaps a utility exists that will
automatically remember everything we have installed, all our program
settings, Start Menu customizations, etc. etc. etc. so we can just run
it after a reinstall or opsys upgrade and get back to productive
work!!!!

????????????????????????????

Thx,
Henry Fiddler
htfiddler@NOSPAM_attglobal.net

 

[George \(Bindar Dundat\)]

Good if he was switching to XP but he has not indicated that.

--
George (Bindar Dundat)
This information is provided "AS IS"
It may even be wrong!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/articles/spam.asp
HOW TO: Use Files and Settings Transfer Wizard in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;293118

1. Create a new folder on your Desktop and name it.
2. Open XP's Files and Setting Transfer Wizard
3. Select "Old Computer"
4. Select "Other" and Browse to the Desktop folder you created
5. The Wizard will create a file in the folder. The file is named
"USMT2.UNC"
6. Record the "USMT2.UNC" file to a CD
7. When you have installed XP and your programs, open the
Files & Settings Transfer Wizard and select "New Computer"
8. Select "I don't need the Wizard Disk......"
9. Browse to your CD Drive and insert the CD containing the "USMT2.UNC" file.
10. Your Files and Settings will begin installing on the new drive.


--
Nicholas

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----


| I sure hope some of you MVP's have some words of wisdom for me!
|
| It seems every year, that when a drive crashes or I buy a new computer,
| I am going to a new opsys. This was not a problem back in the MS-DOS
| days. But now, since Win95 the nightmare grows every year it seems.
| Used to be I could just backup the whole hard drive, programs and all,
| restore from backup on new computer and be up and running in a few
| hours. No such luck anymore. Now we have .ini files and registries and
| settings, stored hither and yon.
|
| When I get blue screens, memory conflicts, illegal operations, etc. all
| the techs tell me to backup all data, reformat, reinstall and then
| reinstall all programs & data. Yeah ... right! I generally don't have
| a whole week to kill! Then, after I reinstall, I have lost all my
| settings, phone numbers from dialers, customized little add-ons that
| came with my optical mouse, etc. etc. etc. I end up going into all my
| programs and thinking .... "Gee ... this didn't work this way before ...
| oh yeah ... I changed this setting 1.3 years ago and forget where to
| even go to find where the setting is set, and God only knows what I had
| it set to !!!!"
|
| Obviously, I can start a document where I manually keep track of all
| these programs, settings, etc. so I remember what they were and where to
| re-locate the proper dialog box, tab, and checkbox within that dialog
| tab (and then hope I don't forget to update this document for every
| single change I make). Then, I can reinstall and re-set faster. But we
| are still talking days rather than hours, as it used to be in the "good
| old days".
|
| It used to be that each program had 1 to 3 or so little .ini files in
| the same folder as the .exe, that would change date/time stamp every
| time you changed a setting. You could easily discover these files using
| Windows Explorer and back them up, then restore after upgrading, and
| bingo ... DONE! But now it seems settings are going into the registry
| more and more. Wonderful ... now we have to manually go to the dialogs,
| tabs and checkboxes .... very time consuming after a crash, when it is
| already hectic enough. And it never gets any better as the years tick
| by ... only worse.
|
| I would like to know if Microsoft or any developers have come up with
| any way around this nightmare. Perhaps a utility exists that will
| automatically remember everything we have installed, all our program
| settings, Start Menu customizations, etc. etc. etc. so we can just run
| it after a reinstall or opsys upgrade and get back to productive
| work!!!!
|
| ????????????????????????????
|
| Thx,
| Henry Fiddler
| htfiddler@NOSPAM_attglobal.net
|
|

 

[Ken Blake]

It seems every year, that when a drive crashes or I buy a new computer,
I am going to a new opsys. This was not a problem back in the MS-DOS
days. But now, since Win95 the nightmare grows every year it seems.
Used to be I could just backup the whole hard drive, programs and all,
restore from backup on new computer and be up and running in a few
hours. No such luck anymore. Now we have .ini files and registries and
settings, stored hither and yon.

Doesn't matter. You can still back up the whole hard drive if
that's what you want to do. Programs like Ghost and Drive Image
do this easily.

 

[cave]

-----Original Message-----
I sure hope some of you MVP's have some words of wisdom for me!

It seems every year, that when a drive crashes or I buy a new computer,
I am going to a new opsys. This was not a problem back in the MS-DOS
days. But now, since Win95 the nightmare grows every year it seems.
Used to be I could just backup the whole hard drive, programs and all,
restore from backup on new computer and be up and running in a few
hours. No such luck anymore. Now we have .ini files and registries and
settings, stored hither and yon.

When I get blue screens, memory conflicts, illegal operations, etc. all
the techs tell me to backup all data, reformat, reinstall and then
reinstall all programs & data. Yeah ... right! I generally don't have
a whole week to kill! Then, after I reinstall, I have lost all my
settings, phone numbers from dialers, customized little add-ons that
came with my optical mouse, etc. etc. etc. I end up going into all my
programs and thinking .... "Gee ... this didn't work this way before ...
oh yeah ... I changed this setting 1.3 years ago and forget where to
even go to find where the setting is set, and God only knows what I had
it set to !!!!"

Obviously, I can start a document where I manually keep track of all
these programs, settings, etc. so I remember what they were and where to
re-locate the proper dialog box, tab, and checkbox within that dialog
tab (and then hope I don't forget to update this document for every
single change I make). Then, I can reinstall and re-set faster. But we
are still talking days rather than hours, as it used to be in the "good
old days".

It used to be that each program had 1 to 3 or so little .ini files in
the same folder as the .exe, that would change date/time stamp every
time you changed a setting. You could easily discover these files using
Windows Explorer and back them up, then restore after upgrading, and
bingo ... DONE! But now it seems settings are going into the registry
more and more. Wonderful ... now we have to manually go to the dialogs,
tabs and checkboxes .... very time consuming after a crash, when it is
already hectic enough. And it never gets any better as the years tick
by ... only worse.

I would like to know if Microsoft or any developers have come up with
any way around this nightmare. Perhaps a utility exists that will
automatically remember everything we have installed, all our program
settings, Start Menu customizations, etc. etc. etc. so we can just run
it after a reinstall or opsys upgrade and get back to productive
work!!!!

????????????????????????????

Thx,
Henry Fiddler
htfiddler@NOSPAM_attglobal.net

the clean install is best for the first install on new

hardware or os,but certainly you can then ghost the drive
when you have it where you want it and keep a good image
for when it breaks down and you want to reinstall and be
up in 15 minutes instead of four hours.

surely you are using ghost software now,since you have
been using computers for so long and have so much
experience?

xp pro has asr automated system recovery to get a
broken os back up very quickly as well.

you can also dual boot xp on 2 partitions and use the
second partition if the first one breaks and surely when
you can see all your setting you can reset up the first
install more quickly than the six months it now takes you.

 

[George \(Bindar Dundat\)]

You could download a backup app from the web. There is a free one named MOB (My
own Backup) which you can download here
http://www.softlookup.com/download/down8904.html
The only problem with these programs is that it takes a while to figure out what
is important enough to back up. In your case you will want to include the
system.dat and user.dat files from your Windows folder. Those are the two files
used in the Windows Registry. You should also include win.ini and system.ini
from the same folder. All four of these files are backed up on the first
startup of the day and Windows retains 5 backup files so that you can restore
your registry. If you only needed to go back 4 or 5 days that would be fine
(for those files only) but if you may need to go back further than that, they
should be included in a backup set. The nice thing about MOB is that it keeps
everything in simple ZIP files along with the path info. You could always use
WinZip to restore them.

--
George (Bindar Dundat)
This information is provided "AS IS"
It may even be wrong!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/articles/spam.asp
| I sure hope some of you MVP's have some words of wisdom for me!
|
| It seems every year, that when a drive crashes or I buy a new computer,
| I am going to a new opsys. This was not a problem back in the MS-DOS
| days. But now, since Win95 the nightmare grows every year it seems.
| Used to be I could just backup the whole hard drive, programs and all,
| restore from backup on new computer and be up and running in a few
| hours. No such luck anymore. Now we have .ini files and registries and
| settings, stored hither and yon.
|
| When I get blue screens, memory conflicts, illegal operations, etc. all
| the techs tell me to backup all data, reformat, reinstall and then
| reinstall all programs & data. Yeah ... right! I generally don't have
| a whole week to kill! Then, after I reinstall, I have lost all my
| settings, phone numbers from dialers, customized little add-ons that
| came with my optical mouse, etc. etc. etc. I end up going into all my
| programs and thinking .... "Gee ... this didn't work this way before ...
| oh yeah ... I changed this setting 1.3 years ago and forget where to
| even go to find where the setting is set, and God only knows what I had
| it set to !!!!"
|
| Obviously, I can start a document where I manually keep track of all
| these programs, settings, etc. so I remember what they were and where to
| re-locate the proper dialog box, tab, and checkbox within that dialog
| tab (and then hope I don't forget to update this document for every
| single change I make). Then, I can reinstall and re-set faster. But we
| are still talking days rather than hours, as it used to be in the "good
| old days".
|
| It used to be that each program had 1 to 3 or so little .ini files in
| the same folder as the .exe, that would change date/time stamp every
| time you changed a setting. You could easily discover these files using
| Windows Explorer and back them up, then restore after upgrading, and
| bingo ... DONE! But now it seems settings are going into the registry
| more and more. Wonderful ... now we have to manually go to the dialogs,
| tabs and checkboxes .... very time consuming after a crash, when it is
| already hectic enough. And it never gets any better as the years tick
| by ... only worse.
|
| I would like to know if Microsoft or any developers have come up with
| any way around this nightmare. Perhaps a utility exists that will
| automatically remember everything we have installed, all our program
| settings, Start Menu customizations, etc. etc. etc. so we can just run
| it after a reinstall or opsys upgrade and get back to productive
| work!!!!
|
| ????????????????????????????
|
| Thx,
| Henry Fiddler
| htfiddler@NOSPAM_attglobal.net
|
|

 

[Henry T Fiddler]

(see my reply below ....... <<Henry>>)

Doesn't matter. You can still back up the whole hard drive if
that's what you want to do. Programs like Ghost and Drive Image
do this easily.

Yes Ken ... but that only works if:

1) I didn't crash and still can get to the drive.
--- AND ---
2) I plan to stick with same opsys.

This is never the case for me. I am either going to a new computer,
going to a new opsys, or recovering from a crash and restoring from
backup.



Thanks though. ........ <<Henry>>

 

[Bill Crocker]

This should help! PC Relocator;

http://www.alohabob.com/PCRelocator.asp

Bill Crocker

 

[Ken Blake]

Yes Ken ... but that only works if:

1) I didn't crash and still can get to the drive.

No, that depends on what medium you backup too. I would never
recommend a backup to another partition on the same drive. Secure
backup needs to be on removable media. For example, you can
backup to a second drive installed in a removable bay. If you
mount the drive only during backups and restores, it is not
vulnerable to crashes affecting it at the same time as the main
drive. You can always get to your backup.

--- AND ---

2) I plan to stick with same opsys.

Again, no. You can always restore from a backup and then upgrade
to another operating system.

This is never the case for me. I am either going to a new computer,
going to a new opsys, or recovering from a crash and restoring from
backup.

All of those things can be handled by a backup like the one I
describe. Moreover, although backup is a technique for preventing
data loss in the event of problem, not as a technique for
changing hardware or operating systems, such a backup can assist
in those efforsts.

 

[D.Currie]

(see my reply below ....... <<Henry>>)



Yes Ken ... but that only works if:

1) I didn't crash and still can get to the drive.

If the drive crashes, NOTHING is going to help you unless you did a backup
before you crashed, but you were comparing how easy it was to transfer DOS
stuff compared to Windows. If a drive is dead, it's dead, no matter what OS
used to be on it.

--- AND ---
2) I plan to stick with same opsys.

What stops you from ghosting the drive and upgrading, if that's what you
want?

With XP, there's the files and settings transfer wizard.

There are programs that purport to save files, settings, programs, etc., but
I can recommend any as I haven't tried any of them.