How to restore old user settings after windows reinstall?

I reinstalled windows without erasing my harddrive and now everything is stored on the harddrive so i have to go into it and pick out the program now instead of going on the desktop or in All Program in the start tab. Those are now cleared. How do i recover my old user settings back to how they were before the reinstall or can i even do that? If you need further information ill be happy to tell you anything you would like to know. All help is appreciated!

Or you could just use the option of Create Shortcut on Desktop and not have the cut and past steps. Else wise you can try and reinstall the apps over top the already existing files (Only do so if it wont change any critical settings) I recommend it as it will most likely rebuild your Registry entries and allow windows to interpret applications as Installed and can provide settings and parameters needed for some applications to run.