HP PC Recovery issues

[kwamesaid]

Hey what up? I run Windows XP on a HP dv1000 laptop and recently did a PC recovery to fix an issue I had with my windows operating system. Currently, all the programs that I had installed prior to the PC Recovery are still on the hard drive but they are not accessible. When I try to open any program. the system responds saying that i have to install the program first before it can be opened. I think it is due to the change in security codes associated with the new login I have. How can I gain access to the data that I am currently unable to get to?

 

[RebateMonger]

Exactly how did you do the PC recovery? It sounds like you either:

a) Installed Windows on top of the old Windows
or
b) Did a recovery from the HP Recovery Partition or from HP Recovery disks.

In either of these cases, any programs that were added to the PC after it was shipped won't be installed anymore. The files may be there, but the programs won't work (or many won't, anyway).

 

[kwamesaid]

I did a recovery from the HP recovery partition. Are there any other options other than just re-installing the missing programs? If not, how can I erase the files from the hard drive if they are being recognized as being installed?

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: kwamesaid
I did a recovery from the HP recovery partition. Are there any other options other than just re-installing the missing programs? If not, how can I erase the files from the hard drive if they are being recognized as being installed?

When you install most programs they make changes to the registry so that the OS knows where to find them and find whatever else they need to run. When you do a backup, the registry is rolled back to before you installed anything. So, yes, all the programs are still there, but Windows can't run them.

They have to be reinstalled. You can reinstall right on top of the older, non-working versions though.

The old programs may be erasable, depends on what the security settings were when they were installed, which may depend on what OS you're using. You may or may not have permission to erase some of the files.

The problems you're running into are why people use a full install of their OS, reformat the HD in a new prebuilt machine and reinstall the OS. As you're finding, the "rollback" feature is problematic.