Andy said:
To a first order approximation, it's a great answer.
Least work, is to reinstall, assuming the installers have
been collected in one place.
(For things like email tools, the critical part is
saving the database holding boxes, and the address book.
The program installation itself might be relatively
uncomplicated. Rescuing all the emails is the important
part.)
To move a program, it's very simple.
1) Move files and directories associated with the program.
For example, Firefox, the files might be in two or three
different places. You need to know a program well, to know
how scattered the install went. "Program Files" is not
the only directory.
2) A program installer will spew registry entries all over the
place. Say a program has some program preferences, but it
also screws around with the sound subsystem. It might place
some relatively anonymous (not named after itself) entries
in the registry. Now, that's the tough part. Is sewing the
registry all back together. The things named after the program,
might be easy to find, whereas other sneaky settings, less so.
I would say (1) is relatively easy. You can take some educated
guesses as to where stuff went.
The (2) thing is harder. Getting exactly the right parts
of the registry, is hard.
Now, what we haven't covered, is "high and mighty" programs.
These are programs that cost hundred of dollars to buy. The
manufacturer, seeks to prevent people from "stealing"
the program. Modifications are made by the installer to
the system, stuff is perhaps put outside the file system.
In many ways, it's almost like malware behavior. This
would be even harder to track down, short of scouring
the Internet for "cracks" to avoid whatever the
program uses for activation/registration/validation.
You may move the files for Adobe Photoshop, only to be
greeted by a frozen screen (as it figures out the install
is not valid).
Philo's solution avoids the headaches. If you want to
play Dick Tracy, part of it is easy, and part of it
is not. And programs are under no obligation to
repair their preferences, or rerun parts of the
installer on demand. While the odd program may
advertise a repair capability (such as seen
in "Add/Remove" programs control panel), you're
not going to be saved by that generally. Some
programs, when you go to uninstall them, they
just uninstall. And some programs offer options,
either to uninstall or to repair.
Even the Add/Remove menu, may not end up populated
correctly, if you just moved some folders from the
old install. Then, when you want to uninstall something,
there has to be a link to the uninstaller executable
in the Program Files thing.
It's certainly possible, to use programs that
trace program installation. And using such a program,
you could develop a "grocery list" of steps needed
to move the program. But if you're doing this
unaided, you're going to be at this for a couple
weeks straight. And a program that traces installations,
you'd have had to install that when the computer was
brand new, so the log would be complete. Installing
such a program or scheme now, would only be good
for the next time.
There may even be programs you can buy, which will attempt
to move the programs from an old system to a new system.
If the program has a good reputation (i.e. they spent the
time to custom-design recipes for a couple hundred different
popular programs), it might even be worth buying. But
recognize the problem is "hard", and just as easily,
there could be programs it doesn't know how to move.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2353299,00.asp
"To the rescue comes Laplink's PCmover, which the company
claims is the only software utility that can transfer
programs from XP to Windows 7. In my testing, PCmover
proved itself more than up to the task."
(Their web page is a bit annoying.)
http://www.laplink.com/index.php/individuals/pcmover-for-windows-8/feature-overview
Paul
