Missing applications after XP clean install/reinstall - Help!!

[speeed001]

Howdy. Having a meltdown here. Wouldn't you know it, my laptop goes all BSOD
on me two days before I have a major project due.

Here's my problem in a nutshell: I've reinstalled Windows XP SP2 clean. I've
got my user profile and associated documents back, but no applications.
They're still on the hard drive, I just can't open them.

Initially, everything was gone - user profiles, applications, everything.
I've managed to get my main user profile back so I have all of my documents,
settings, etc. And I have a few applications that must have been installed to
places other than the Program Files folder or wherever. But the vast majority
of my applications are gone. Well, not gone, since I can still see the
Program Files folder on my c drive, and all of the applications and their
data are still there, they just don't show up in the aplications menu, and
their icons have all vanished from my Taskbar, replaced by the generic empty
white icon. When I go into the Program Files folder to try to open any given
application by clicking the .exe file, I get various error messages. Here are
some examples:

"A serious error occurred which prevents NaturallySpeaking from accessing
the registry."
"Cannot start Microsoft outlook. MAPI32.DLL is corrupt or the wrong version.
Please reinstall Outlook."
"Total Recorder is not installed. You must install Total Recorder 7.1 before
running this program."
"TaxCut2007 has failed to start because the application configuration is
incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem."

Most of the discussions I've found online regarding the issue of recovering
corrupt profiles just end the discussion after the profile is recovered and
say "now reinstall your applications."

Now, I have the install disks for a lot of my major applications - Microsoft
Office, etc. But - and I know there's a lesson here, I know - I don't have
the installation disks for a lot of my applications, largely because they
were purchased via download. The install files are, in most cases, long gone.

What I am trying (hoping, praying) to do is get the existing aplications
back. I mean, they're all right there, for crying out loud! I can see em!

So, can this be done?

Some additional background on how I got in this jam, and what I've done to
"fix" it so far.

I run Windows on a Mac. It's a dual-boot machine, and my Windows lives on a
40GB partition. I recently started having BSOD issues that prevented Windows
from even booting up - not even in safe mode. The machine wouldn't boot up at
all.

So I set out to do a repair from a legitimately purchased XP-SP2 install CD.
Before I did that, I made a "backup" of the whole hard drive (i.e., the 40GB
partition).

Here's how I did that, which may be relevant. The 40GB partition is an NTFS
file system. Macs have the ability to read, but not write to NTFS partitions.
The whole Windows partition mounts as a hard disk on my Mac desktop. So, I
booted into mac, and just copied the entire contents of that partition onto
an external firewire drive. Specifically, this firewire drive was also
partitioned, and the partition I used was formatted as FAT32 specifically for
use with the windows "machine". (FYI, after I did this I was concerned about
whether or not I would have issues with FAT32 having the 4GB file size
limitation, so I did a search for any files larger than 3.8gb on my mounted
windows partition. There were none, so I feel like I'm safe from any 4GB file
size limitations of FAT32 on my "backup" files.)

Anyway, after I had copied the contents of my Windows partition to another
drive, I first tried a repair install from the Windows Boot CD. No luck,
still BSOD. Not even into safe mode. So... time for a clean install. I had
hoped that my users/documents/prorams would stay intact. No such luck.

I managed to get my main user profile back by creating a new admin profile
within the XP machine, creating a new profile with the same name as the old
one, and then dragging over my old profile data into the corresponding
profile to replace all the "new" data with the old. Now my desktop looks the
same, all (I think) of the files appear to be where I left them, My Documents
contains all of my pictures and docs, etc. So far so good.

But: most of the documents have generic icons as opposed to the icons
indcating their corresponding application. And now, my Start-->All Programs
folder is darn near empty. Only a smattering of apps, as opposed to the huge
list of apps that were on the old machine.

So there's the long drawn-out explanation. If you've read this far, bless you.

So - does anyone have suggestions? Can I get the new Windows install to
"see" my existing apps? Is this a registry issue? (The whole registry concept
is where my brain hits a brick wall.) If so, is it possible to replace my
current registry with the old one that I have saved on the firewire drive?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

-Scott

 

[Peter Foldes]

What does the BSOD say. Can you post it here with the Stop error number which is
needed to tell you the issue

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Howdy. Having a meltdown here. Wouldn't you know it, my laptop goes
all BSOD on me two days before I have a major project due.

Here's my problem in a nutshell: I've reinstalled Windows XP SP2
clean. I've got my user profile and associated documents back, but
no applications. They're still on the hard drive, I just can't open
them.

Initially, everything was gone - user profiles, applications,
everything. I've managed to get my main user profile back so I have
all of my documents, settings, etc. And I have a few applications
that must have been installed to places other than the Program
Files folder or wherever. But the vast majority of my applications
are gone. Well, not gone, since I can still see the Program Files
folder on my c drive, and all of the applications and their data
are still there, they just don't show up in the aplications menu,
and their icons have all vanished from my Taskbar, replaced by the
generic empty white icon. When I go into the Program Files folder
to try to open any given application by clicking the .exe file, I
get various error messages. Here are some examples:

"A serious error occurred which prevents NaturallySpeaking from
accessing
the registry."
"Cannot start Microsoft outlook. MAPI32.DLL is corrupt or the wrong
version. Please reinstall Outlook."
"Total Recorder is not installed. You must install Total Recorder
7.1 before running this program."
"TaxCut2007 has failed to start because the application
configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix
this problem."

Most of the discussions I've found online regarding the issue of
recovering corrupt profiles just end the discussion after the
profile is recovered and say "now reinstall your applications."

Now, I have the install disks for a lot of my major applications -
Microsoft Office, etc. But - and I know there's a lesson here, I
know - I don't have the installation disks for a lot of my
applications, largely because they were purchased via download. The
install files are, in most cases, long gone.

What I am trying (hoping, praying) to do is get the existing
aplications back. I mean, they're all right there, for crying out
loud! I can see em!

So, can this be done?

Some additional background on how I got in this jam, and what I've
done to "fix" it so far.

I run Windows on a Mac. It's a dual-boot machine, and my Windows
lives on a 40GB partition. I recently started having BSOD issues
that prevented Windows from even booting up - not even in safe
mode. The machine wouldn't boot up at all.

So I set out to do a repair from a legitimately purchased XP-SP2
install CD. Before I did that, I made a "backup" of the whole hard
drive (i.e., the 40GB partition).

Here's how I did that, which may be relevant. The 40GB partition is
an NTFS file system. Macs have the ability to read, but not write
to NTFS partitions. The whole Windows partition mounts as a hard
disk on my Mac desktop. So, I booted into mac, and just copied the
entire contents of that partition onto an external firewire drive.
Specifically, this firewire drive was also partitioned, and the
partition I used was formatted as FAT32 specifically for use with
the windows "machine". (FYI, after I did this I was concerned about
whether or not I would have issues with FAT32 having the 4GB file
size limitation, so I did a search for any files larger than 3.8gb
on my mounted windows partition. There were none, so I feel like
I'm safe from any 4GB file size limitations of FAT32 on my "backup"
files.)

Anyway, after I had copied the contents of my Windows partition to
another drive, I first tried a repair install from the Windows Boot
CD. No luck, still BSOD. Not even into safe mode. So... time for a
clean install. I had hoped that my users/documents/prorams would
stay intact. No such luck.

I managed to get my main user profile back by creating a new admin
profile within the XP machine, creating a new profile with the same
name as the old one, and then dragging over my old profile data
into the corresponding profile to replace all the "new" data with
the old. Now my desktop looks the same, all (I think) of the files
appear to be where I left them, My Documents contains all of my
pictures and docs, etc. So far so good.

But: most of the documents have generic icons as opposed to the
icons indcating their corresponding application. And now, my
Start-->All Programs folder is darn near empty. Only a smattering
of apps, as opposed to the huge list of apps that were on the old
machine.

So there's the long drawn-out explanation. If you've read this far,
bless you.

So - does anyone have suggestions? Can I get the new Windows
install to "see" my existing apps? Is this a registry issue? (The
whole registry concept is where my brain hits a brick wall.) If
so, is it possible to replace my current registry with the old one
that I have saved on the firewire drive?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The short answer is that you may be out of luck for many of your
applications.

Many windows applications now use shared DLL files and registry settings.
If you had performed a true clean installation (you didn't) you would not
see your old files/folders on the hard drive. Since you seemingly performed
a parallel installation (although you may have over-written the 'windows'
and other default directories) - you could be out of luck on many of these
applications.

The easy explanation is that many modern windows applications are written in
such a way that they depend on certain things built-in to windows and siome
go further - their actual installed location and even further for some -
specific user settings/permissions.

They may utilize a shared DLL file, they may be installed with settings
specific to whatever user installed the applications (and only run for that
user), they may put many (much too many some might say) settings in the
resgistry (per user or for the entire system.) What this means is you
cannot rely on being able to see what you think is the entire program in a
folder. It may have parts in several other folders and it may even have had
things in the registry telling it what to look for/find things it needs.

Without the original installation media and product key/serial number for
products you bought - particularly with modern windows-based applications
you might purchase - many times you are lost if something disasterous
happens. Backups are easy and not having them is unwise, at best.

 

[smlunatick]

Howdy. Having a meltdown here. Wouldn't you know it, my laptop goes all BSOD
on me two days before I have a major project due.

Here's my problem in a nutshell: I've reinstalled Windows XP SP2 clean. I've
got my user profile and associated documents back, but no applications.
They're still on the hard drive, I just can't open them.

Initially, everything was gone - user profiles, applications, everything.
I've managed to get my main user profile back so I have all of my documents,
settings, etc. And I have a few applications that must have been installed to
places other than the Program Files folder or wherever. But the vast majority
of my applications are gone. Well, not gone, since I can still see the
Program Files folder on my c drive, and all of the applications and their
data are still there, they just don't show up in the aplications menu, and
their icons have all vanished from my Taskbar, replaced by the generic empty
white icon. When I go into the Program Files folder to try to open any given
application by clicking the .exe file, I get various error messages. Hereare
some examples:

"A serious error occurred which prevents NaturallySpeaking from accessing
the registry."
"Cannot start Microsoft outlook. MAPI32.DLL is corrupt or the wrong version.
Please reinstall Outlook."
"Total Recorder is not installed. You must install Total Recorder 7.1 before
running this program."
"TaxCut2007 has failed to start because the application configuration is
incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem."

Most of the discussions I've found online regarding the issue of recovering
corrupt profiles just end the discussion after the profile is recovered and
say "now reinstall your applications."

Now, I have the install disks for a lot of my major applications - Microsoft
Office, etc. But - and I know there's a lesson here, I know - I don't have
the installation disks for a lot of my applications, largely because they
were purchased via download. The install files are, in most cases, long gone.

What I am trying (hoping, praying) to do is get the existing aplications
back. I mean, they're all right there, for crying out loud! I can see em!

So, can this be done?

Some additional background on how I got in this jam, and what I've done to
"fix" it so far.

I run Windows on a Mac. It's a dual-boot machine, and my Windows lives ona
40GB partition. I recently started having BSOD issues that prevented Windows
from even booting up - not even in safe mode. The machine wouldn't boot up at
all.

So I set out to do a repair from a legitimately purchased XP-SP2 install CD.
Before I did that, I made a "backup" of the whole hard drive (i.e., the 40GB
partition).

Here's how I did that, which may be relevant. The 40GB partition is an NTFS
file system. Macs have the ability to read, but not write to NTFS partitions.
The whole Windows partition mounts as a hard disk on my Mac desktop. So, I
booted into mac, and just copied the entire contents of that partition onto
an external firewire drive. Specifically, this firewire drive was also
partitioned, and the partition I used was formatted as FAT32 specificallyfor
use with the windows "machine". (FYI, after I did this I was concerned about
whether or not I would have issues with FAT32 having the 4GB file size
limitation, so I did a search for any files larger than 3.8gb on my mounted
windows partition. There were none, so I feel like I'm safe from any 4GB file
size limitations of FAT32 on my "backup" files.)

Anyway, after I had copied the contents of my Windows partition to another
drive, I first tried a repair install from the Windows Boot CD. No luck,
still BSOD. Not even into safe mode. So... time for a clean install. I had
hoped that my users/documents/prorams would stay intact. No such luck.

I managed to get my main user profile back by creating a new admin profile
within the XP machine, creating a new profile with the same name as the old
one, and then dragging over my old profile data into the corresponding
profile to replace all the "new" data with the old. Now my desktop looks the
same, all (I think) of the files appear to be where I left them, My Documents
contains all of my pictures and docs, etc. So far so good.

But: most of the documents have generic icons as opposed to the icons
indcating their corresponding application. And now, my Start-->All Programs
folder is darn near empty. Only a smattering of apps, as opposed to the huge
list of apps that were on the old machine.

So there's the long drawn-out explanation. If you've read this far, blessyou.

So - does anyone have suggestions? Can I get the new Windows install to
"see" my existing apps? Is this a registry issue? (The whole registry concept
is where my brain  hits a brick wall.) If so, is it possible to replacemy
current registry with the old one that I have saved on the firewire drive?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

-Scott

A clean Windows reinstall WILL required a clean reinstall of all
applications. A clean reinstall normally will clear out the Windows
"folders" and the Windows Registry. Since these have been cleared,
the previously installed application have completely lost their "set
up" settings.