XP Pro reinstalled but want my old user account

[jfiz]

Hi,

I need some help here. I hope to be clear I am french speaking...
My computer was running XP pro. I wanted to re install it to fix some minor
problems. I did the re install BUT I did a full install and created a
completely new user (lets call it A) with admin right of course. Now I am
stuck with this new desktop with nothing on it...this is not what i want. I
can see my old user (B) account under c:doc and settings with all the
programs in it.

Now under my "A" account not even office is installed. I do not want to use
this account I want to be able to log in with my "B" user (the old one) and
delete the "A" account.

Because I did a "new" installation even my restore calendar is empty. It was
full of restore points before...

Any help please!!!??

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I need some help here. I hope to be clear I am french speaking...
My computer was running XP pro. I wanted to re install it to fix
some minor problems. I did the re install BUT I did a full install
and created a completely new user (lets call it A) with admin right
of course. Now I am stuck with this new desktop with nothing on
it...this is not what i want. I can see my old user (B) account
under c:doc and settings with all the programs in it.

Now under my "A" account not even office is installed. I do not
want to use this account I want to be able to log in with my "B"
user (the old one) and delete the "A" account.

Because I did a "new" installation even my restore calendar is
empty. It was full of restore points before...

Your "account" has little to do with the programs that are installed on the
system. If you did a second install - you will have to install all the
applications you want to use in order to actually utilize them. No matter
if you get the look/feel of your old user account back - you are not going
to gain full functionality of the applications without installing them
again.

You did a NEW install. You wanted to do a NEW install. It's what it sounds
like - a NEW INSTALL.

So, although you could pretty easily get your files/favorites and maybe even
your email from the old account, you will have to install everything else
again in order to make it work.

 

[jfiz]

Shenan,

Thank you for your help...this is not the answer I was looking for. I
understand that the "new" install was done but I was expecting the
possibility to "re activate" my old user name. This is quite a huge amout of
work to migrate all the data of all those programs.

Any other ideas?

Thanks for your help

 

[Malke]

Shenan,

Thank you for your help...this is not the answer I was looking for. I
understand that the "new" install was done but I was expecting the
possibility to "re activate" my old user name. This is quite a huge
amout of work to migrate all the data of all those programs.

Any other ideas?

Thanks for your help

You could not have done a clean install if you are still seeing your old
user account in Documents and Settings. Please review the information
at these two links to see what you actually did:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
How-To
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To

Then come back and let us know. Or, if you would be more comfortable
speaking French, post your question in one of the Microsoft French
newsgroups. I would suggest a general XP one since your question is not
related to security administration. Here is a list of all the MS
newsgroups. You are looking for the *.fr ones.

http://aumha.org/nntp.htm

Malke

 

[jfiz]

Malke,

Thank you for this, I when I look at those pages it is a clean install I did,
I had to put my CD key again. But still, I do see my 3 old users (me and my 2
kids). I am looking at the page "Windows XP Crashed? Here's Help" that you
refer too and I think that I may be able to recover my old users (at least
mine) with those steps. The only thing I saw as my first problem with the
steps is that my keyboard change into a awerty configuration when i booth
from the CD and I lose my backslash \... It is kind of essential to complete
all those steps in the recovery console..... any ideas how to get it back
(the \)

Do you think I should try this route to get my user back?

thanks

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Thank you for this, I when I look at those pages it is a clean
install I did, I had to put my CD key again. But still, I do see my
3 old users (me and my 2 kids). I am looking at the page "Windows
XP Crashed? Here's Help" that you refer too and I think that I may
be able to recover my old users (at least mine) with those steps.
The only thing I saw as my first problem with the steps is that my
keyboard change into a awerty configuration when i booth from the
CD and I lose my backslash \... It is kind of essential to complete
all those steps in the recovery console..... any ideas how to get
it back (the \)

Do you think I should try this route to get my user back?

A clean install would mean you formatted the system drive and there was
nothing on it at all and then you installed Windows XP onto said empty
drive. A true clean install would mean there would be nothing left on your
system partitions from the old installation. The only way you did a clean
install and still see your old users is if you copied those user directories
onto another partition while you performed the clean installation.

What it sounds like to me is that you did a parallel installation or a
repair installation. Although - a repair installation should have left your
users intact - so it sounds more and more like a parallel install.

Even if all you did was a parallel installation - you are going to have to
reinstall most of your applications in order to get them to work. All of
their registry entries are gone and they will not all be in your old user
profile.