1

I recently bought a new SSD for my computer and installed a windows 7 on with a help from my friend. We plugged it in, and set the computer to boot from that version of windows. I'm wondering about what exactly happened to all the programs and games of my "previous" windows? We left it untouched at the original C, which is now F-drive. They don't show up on programs, but their files can be found.

Steam, where most of my games are, works after a little trickery, but for example L.A.Noire, a non-steam-game, fails to launch because it "Could not locate game executable on local machine". Because it doesn't show up on removable programs and there's no uninstall file, there is no way for me to remove it, only the files.

What happens if I do so to it, or other programs with same situation? Are they really gone? What should I do here?

1

3 Answers 3

2

Many applications will leave traces of information in either the Windows Registry or your AppData folder (can be found by typing %APPDATA% in Windows Explorer). This information may include the location of the executable file, some basic settings and license data (amongst others).

When you start with a clean installation of Windows, these pieces of data will be missing, therefore interrupting the operation of those programs (or games). Additionally, your saved games could be stored in your previous Documents folder.

You could, for example, reinstall the affected games to the existing folder, which may or may not work, or you could just delete the old folder and install the game again (maybe to your SSD to gain some speed in the process). Be sure to transfer any saved games you might have in your old Documents folder to your new SSD to keep your progress.

(Primarily with older games, some of them stored your progress in the game directory itself. Make sure this is not the case with your games before deleting any data.)

0

Like you say, only the files are still there, but the registration in the Windows Register and any shortcuts in the start menu or desktop won't exist on your new Windows setup. If you don't want to use the Windows installed on your F-drive, then you can safely remove the Program Files and Windows folder on your F-drive. You will have to re-install all programs if you want to use them on your new Windows setup.

0

Depends on how you look at things.

If you have the SSD and your old "spinner" in the same machine, all your old program files will exist still on whichever drive letter is now assigned to the old drive (assuming windows took "C:" when you installed the SSD)

The problem you will have launching these apps is that if you installed windows to a fresh partition, all shortcuts will be invalid and anything in the registry will no longer be there (new windows - new registry). The old hive files that make up the registry will be present on the old drive, but will not be much use to you. There are also certain folders such as %appdata%, %temp%, %path% etc which are used to refer to other folders - these folder paths will have most likely changed - and even if they havent, the data in them will not be the same after a reload of an OS.. which may render apps unuseable.

You may get lucky being able to launch and repair a few programs, but best advice will be to reinstall them!

Also, if the old drive is no longer present in the machine, the data is gone. You might be able to mount the drive in a cradle or as a secondary drive, but the apps will still not function.

If this is unacceptable (and you havent re-used the old drive) you should still be able to plug it back in and boot to it to transfer all your stuff off.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .