Which folders are important for programs and user/personal data?

theorange · Mar 30, 2015

Hey guys, I decided to image my windows drive, then wipe and reinstall to fix what I initially thought were problems due to a corrupt partition table. However, after restoring my entire original image, the system ran into the same problems it did in the beginning. (Some sort of corrupt boot files) So I went and reinstalled the entire thing again. This time around, though, I'm only restoring my programs, my personal data(pretty much just the users folder) and device drivers. So far, I've restored the Program Files and Program Files (x86) folders, which I thought would bring back my programs, and I guess I thought wrong, as after a quick reboot, my original programs seem not to be there. Here's the folders I plan on copying over though:

Program Files
Program Files (x86)
Program Data
Users
\Windows\system32\drivers
\Windows\system32\driverstore

What other folders are important for copying over programs and drivers?

kanewolf · Mar 30, 2015

If you did a clean install of Windows then you have to reinstall your programs. The Windows registry keeps track of what is installed. The registry only gets the correct info loaded when you install rather than just copy programs.

I wouldn't recommend copying ProgramFiles or ProgramFiles x86. It would be very easy to get an inconsistent install. Same with system32.

You need the installation files and do a re-install for your programs.

theorange · Mar 30, 2015

Oh, ok then. Guess I'm starting from scratch then. Fortunately, the personal data was all that was really important, which I restored fairly easily with the users folder (Another other places where user data would be?) I was just sort of too lazy to reinstall all of my programs, but looking back on it, I've wasted the last 3 damn days trying to fix the issue, that it probably would have just been faster in the beginning to reinstall anyways.

kanewolf · Mar 30, 2015

The User folder(s) are the first place. I have other folders that I use but if you had created something like a photo archive or download archive that was a c:\xxxx path, I would think you would remember.

theorange · Mar 30, 2015

Hmm, well, I guess I was too lazy to check, because copying Program Files did end up getting some of my programs back, but not others. Whole thing seems kind of hit or miss. Welp, thanks for the help though!

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Which folders are important for programs and user/personal data?

theorange

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theorange

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kanewolf

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theorange

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