Reinstalling XP with partitions
 

I have my 80GB drive partitioned with XP on the C: drive, and all my apps on the E: drive. I did this because I heard you could then do a format and reinstall on the C: and keep all your apps on the E:. Once you do this, how to you reregister the apps with Windows? Is there a utility that does this?

Thanks

I'd keep the installation files of the apps on e: drive and then format c: drive. Then simply reinstall the apps with Windows after you've formatted. There may be a program out there that can simply copy the installations onto the new Windows all at once, but I've never heard of it or tried it. I know that Norton Ghost will copy a Windows installation onto another hard drive, but I'm not sure if it works the same way with regular programs. I think you'll have to simply back up the installation files on e: drive and then install them on the new c: drive with the new Windows. Good luck!

-Lasereth

afaik, there's really no way to format/reinstall without having to reinstall all your proggies again.

pain in the ass, yes. but if you've done it a few times you get the hang of how to do it the most efficiently and such.

Norton Ghost will ghost all your installed programs too, so for future reference that can be an option shortly after a fresh install when u've got everything essential situated properly, make a ghost and use that in the future.

depending on how often you do formats tho, that can be silly if you've got lots of programs to update and such.

(ps) i think what most people do with their partitions is have the C: be the system partition, with the OS *and* programs.
then the other partition(s) are the storage.

I'd have to agree with SiN. Installing programs will add registry entries to your Windows installation. These will need to be replaced when you do a fresh install of Windows. The only real effective way of doing that is reinstalling each and every program.
(NOTE: it is possible but completely inadvisable to backup your registry and copy it over the fresh one)

The ghost option is a real good suggestion for future reinstalls. But that's an entirely different subject so please ask if you need more info on that.

thanks everyone

i guess it may be time for a complete wipe anyway, it's been almost a year. Maybe thats a good excuse to buy a DVD Writer....

Norton Ghost will allow you to span images across multiple CDs. It won't be practical to do that for everything on the hard drive, of course, but you can do it pretty easily with the Windows partiition/drive, which shouldn't be taking up more than 6GB uncompressed (which Ghost will compress quite nicely).

you don't need to lose all your programs and data, i have done this many times with success, just follow this howto

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article...52,pg,4,00.asp