Migrating programs between drives

[Guest]

Can anyone help?!! I'm building a new PC and want to copy all of the programs
rom my old HDD to me new HDD at time of installation of Win XP Pro. How can I
do this?

 

[Rock]

Can anyone help?!! I'm building a new PC and want to copy all of the programs
rom my old HDD to me new HDD at time of installation of Win XP Pro. How can I
do this?

There is no effective way to transfer programs from one installation to
another. They will need to be installed from the original media.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Can anyone help?!! I'm building a new PC and want to copy all
of the
programs rom my old HDD to me new HDD at time of installation
of Win
XP Pro. How can I do this?

Sorry, you can't. You can move data, but not programs. Programs,
once installed, are not self-contained entities that can be
picked up and moved from one place to another. Programs have many
entries in the registry and often supporting files outside of
their own folders. There's no reliable way to move all of this,
and you'll have to reinstall all the programs from their original
media.

There's an occasional small program that's an exception to this,
but there are very few.

 

[Anna]

There is no effective way to transfer programs from one installation to
another. They will need to be installed from the original media.

scooter:
If your old HD also contains the WinXP Pro OS, you can "clone" the contents
of that drive to your new one using a disk imaging program such as
Symantec's Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image or use the disk copying
utility included in the HD manufacturer's retail, boxed versions of their
HDs (also usually freely available from their websites). Naturally you would
have to install whatever drivers are necessary for your new motherboard as
well as activating the new system.

Obviously if your old HD contains a pre-XP OS, then the preceding is not
applicable. Then, as Rock states, you would need the programs' installation
media to install all or virtually all of your programs. There are various
commercially-available data migration programs designed to transfer programs
but in my experience they're iffy at best.
Anna