Recovering from a reinstall

[Guest]

I had to reinstall XP. Previously installed applications are still on the
hard drive but won't run. Is there any way short of reinstalling them to
reactivate them?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I had to reinstall XP. Previously installed applications are still on the
hard drive but won't run. Is there any way short of reinstalling them to
reactivate them?

First, why did you "have" to do a reinstall?

Second, what did you actually do? Please explain the procedure you
followed in detail. When you properly do a clean reinstallation, it
wipes out everything on the drive. So if you have previously-installed
applications there, you clearly did something wrong.

Do you perhaps have Windows installed twice on the drive?

 

[Guest]

It's been a few months since this happened, but as I recall my system froze
after installing a Netgear update. Rebooting didn't help. I tried to
recover using my XP installation CD but I'm not technical enough to
understand the process, so I reinstalled XP. I think it gave me the option
of reformatting the hard drive and I said no. I don't think I have XP
installed twice. I can see some applications, like MS Office, on the drive
using Windows Explorer and I can click on the application icon in the
detailed view. The program (like Word or Excel) actually starts, but then
complains about not being properly installed. I have the CD to reinstall, I
was just hoping that since it's already there I might be able to get XP to
recognize it.