I have two probably related problems with Windows' Compatibility mode.
Compatibility tab missing, but not on all programs
The title is rather self-explanatory, but let me show you: the Properties window's Compatibility tab is missing for some executables, but not others. See how this NES emulator has the tab, but a game launcher doesn't.
Compatibility wizard giving an error
Since I didn't see the Compatibility tab, I thought I could try the wizard from the right-click option "Solve compatibility problems" (approximate translation). An error shows up here, however. The error appears no matter how I launch the wizard: from a file that has a compatibility tab, from one that doesn't, from the compatibility tab itself or from a Start screen search ("compatibility").
Suspected causes
Before reinstalling Windows, recently, I broke my installation by running a massive search-and-replace of C:\Users for D:\Users because I wasn't succeeding in moving user profiles and program preferences properly. From that broken installation, I backed up my user profile folder, including AppData, and the ProgramData folder. For one, having transferred things from an installation with a broken registry might be problematic.
Here, I committed two errors:
After reinstalling Windows and properly moving user profiles to D:\, including Default and Public, (according to the instructions in this answer), I put my backed-up data in my new user profile folder. However, instead of selecting a few relevant AppData folders, such as Mozilla Firefox and Adobe, to keep my settings in some applications, I copied (and overwrote) the whole AppData folder, which includes some folders titled Microsoft, for example.
I realized the backed up ProgramData folder was pointless, so I wanted to delete it. But some OS things, despite not being tied to the NEW installation, were still locked and non-deletable. Here, instead of booting to Ubuntu and deleting the folder to have a fresh one, I got lazy and just copied over the contents of the new installation (C:\ProgramData) to the backed-up folder (D:\ProgramData), said "yes" for overwriting (obviously with some errors on the locked files) and changed the ProgramData path in the registry, according to the same instructions.
This means my current installation most likely has some ProgramData files from the old one.
Now, I have a double question:
1- What could be the cause(s) of my compatibility tab and wizard issues? Could the above be the cause(s)?
2- If it's my fault and the mistakes described above have caused the problem, is there a way to fix this without reinstalling? Windows installs itself within 5 to 10 minutes, which is great; however, reinstalling my programs and re-configuring everything the way I want it to be takes a whole day, and I would really like to avoid it if possible.
Additional info
- Windows 8 Professional, 64 bits
- A clean installation was performed 1-2 day(s) ago, so malicious software and similar problems are unlikely.
- My system is in French. I have grossly translated, in red, on the screenshots, what I thought was relevant, but if you need an additional translation, please don't hesitate to ask in the comments.
Windows installs itself within 5 to 10 minutes, which is great; however, reinstalling my programs and re-configuring everything the way I want it to be takes a whole day, and I would really like to avoid it if possible.
Tell me about it; I hate it when people jump to reinstall without at least trying to fix it. They must not use their systems much; anyone who has for a while will have to reset 100’s, even 1,000’s of settings here and there! Back in uni in 1997, I would reinstall now and then out of boredom/for fun. Now, I avoid it like the plague. I’m still using my XP install from 2003!C:/Users
⇨D:
), I agree. I long ago butchered my good old XP install from 2003 to segregate as many things into separate volumes as possible, including user data folders. As you learned the hard way, you have to be extra careful when messing with stuff like that because even though Windows uses lots of variables, it still expects certain things to be in certain places and breaks when they are not (as do many third-party programs). In this case, you could consider using a hard-link: moveUsers
toD:
, make a hard-link to it onC:
, and leave the registry alone.The title is rather self-explanatory, but let me show you: the Properties window's Compatibility tab is missing for some executables, but not others. See how this NES emulator has the tab, but a game launcher doesn't.
Can you discern any sort of pattern? That is, can you find any difference between the ones that it shows up for and the ones it doesn’t or similarity between the items in the two groups? For example, Windows executables vs. third-party, 32-bit vs. 64-bit, signed vs. unsigned, etc.? What about shortcuts?