Windows Reinstall Question

[infocus]

I need to reinstall Win7 .I have all games and third party programs(NERO,STEAM,games,perfectdisk,pictures,music) installed on my second harddrive.Will these still work "after" the reinstall?Thanks

 

[slyfox2151]

I need to reinstall Win7 .I have all games and third party programs(NERO,STEAM,games,perfectdisk,pictures,music) installed on my second harddrive.Will these still work "after" the reinstall?Thanks

Most games will work just fine, no problems at all, some games may give you an error that its missing a DLL file, just google and download them to fix that problem.


pretty much if a game dosnt work it will tell you why its not working and its usualy a very quick fix.

 

[cadaveca]

OK, so for steam, whut you do is this:

once the OS is installed, drivers, etc, go into the STEAM folder, and rightclick the STEAM .exe and select "run as administrator".

This will make STEAM reset the installation routine for all apps, allowing a fresh install of the games when you first start, without and data loss, and no downloads(minor downloads for file verification). Each time you start an app in STEAM the first time, the install will rn, and you can be sure that your STEAM apps run properly.

Basically everything else is FUBAR'd.

What you can do, if you are using the same drives, etc, you can backup your registry, and then replace it, however, if you are re0installing because of OS issues, this might be the last thing you really want to do.

So, I recommend jsut re-installing the other apps outside of STEAM.

I do do this very often, and very rarely do I have any issues with activation, or such stuff. All my software is legit, so if something doesn't work, usually a quick phonecall to the app maker, and it gets sorted.


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All that said, all teh data on the secondary drive will still be there, so your music and pictures should be safe. Jsut make sure you do not install windows with that drive plugged in...leave it unplugged from mobo until you finish windows install.

 

[Kreij]

If the application(s) place proprietary DLL's in the System directories, or use is dependant upon specific registry settings, then they will most likely stop working correctly.

 

[infocus]

Hey,thanks for the quick reply you guys..Very helpful...

 

[Kreij]

There are ways to mitigate this (to some extent) but it's usually just easier to re-install the apps to make sure you have everything that you need.
Just make sure to do a backup of the entire system (especially your data) in case something goes south.
Games are a little more resilient and you can just put things back where they belong (like save games and such ... this includes Steam/Impulse games), but back all that up also.

We are just trying to help you avoid an "AWW !@#$$$" moment as much as possible.