Program Files/Installation Question

Hi, I'm going to probably need to reformat Vista for reasons posted a few days ago (which I guess was deleted or something, can't find it [maybe because it was called I Hate Vista]). At any rate I've got Ubuntu on my laptop as well and I've got an idea to save my installed programs (or at least the big ones) on Windows. Basically what I'm wondering is: If I copy just my "Program Files" folder of say CoD4 or FFXI over to Ubuntu and then back to Vista once I get it installed will it be the same as actually installing it or are there certain registry edits that happen that won't this way?

 

Nope, that is not a good idea....even if those programs manage to run, they will screw up the registry, because whenever a program is run on windows for the very first time, it makes a particular registry entry, so that when that program is run again - it doesn't have to access the registry (because if it had to access the registry each time, that would make the system slow)
The Program Files have specific registry keys assigned and if they are not there, then they won't run properly or they might cause some other complications in the windows registry..!!

If you can find all of the COD4 and FFXI keys in the registry, export each of them to one folder, and then reapply them (just by double-clicking on the keys) when you would need to run COD4 or FFXI....basically you will be doing everything manually - what the windows installer does automatically - making registry entries, copy/paste, making shortcuts, etc.

 

The big sucker is idd the Registry. You could try to do this and then immediately runa repair install for all the games and that might work but don't get your hopes up. I've thought about this type of backup too, it's just pretty impossible in Windows lol.

 

Nooooooo! Don't do this, don't try it at home, or anywhere else, for that matter. What you could try, however, is this: (1) clone the existing _Vista installation, along with all the program files, onto an external hard drive; (2) do the clean _Vista installation onto the hard drive in the notebook; (3) use a transfer program, e.g., LapLink PCMover that's designed to move both applications as well as data, to move your programs from the old _Vista installation that was cloned onto the external drive back onto your new _Vista installation.

Keep in mind, however, that there are absolutely no guarantees that this will work perfectly, or will move all of your programs over without breaking something internally.