If i reformat drive C: and all my games are on D: - will i have to reinstall them?

[aphex]

?

My first inkling is yes.

 

[Weeeman]

I'm pretty certain your inkling is correct. :-\

 

[kamper]

I inkle that as well.

 

[mundane]

Assuming the OS and registry are on C:. I think.

 

[o2brew]

For any of the games that store settings etc in the registry you would have to reinstall. Some games and applications don't need any registry entries to run, those would be ok. Those are becoming increaslingly rare though.

 

[styrafoam]

Some games save their profiles and save games(microsoft games esp) to My documents/my games. Back those up before you format C: if you have any.

 

[gwag]

EXPORT THE REGISRTY SETTINGS FOR THE GIVEN GAMES.

 

[Sunner]

Some will require reinstall, some won't, depends on the game.

 

[Philippine Mango]

yea but the problem is registry entries for games can be VERY DEEP in the registry making it impossible.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
yea but the problem is registry entries for games can be VERY DEEP in the registry making it impossible.

I don't remember which one, but there was one game that actually saved all the settings as a .reg file, so if you reinstalled/moved to a new computer, you could just import this reg file.

 

[boran]

I think you'll have to reinstall, as mentioned previously, make sure they dont store anything on C, Games such as NFSU2 store the savegame on your C (very hidden even), so make sure you have all savegames accounted for (ask here if you cant find a savegame for a peticular game).

 

[sandorski]

If you haven't tried already and are using WinXP, do a Repair Install. Nothing will need to be re-installed and many a problem has been solved using Repair.

 

[funggorgor]

yes, of coz you need to reinstall them
otherwise you will miss all the registration and dll files

 

[Joemonkey]

i do this once every few months, and out of the 10 or so games i play, 9 of them do NOT need to be reinstalled!

 

[SagaLore]

Unless they'are all DOS based games, then yes.

 

[Sunner]

Again, there are games, quite a few of them in fact, that will work even after a reinstall.
It's all up to how the game stores data.

In many cases a reconfig might be needed, in some others, they'll run just fine the way they were, sans start menu objects etc.

 

[imported_jediknight]

Most games are well behaved and place all of their registry entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE. If you backup the necessary keys, everything should work. Saved games may be a different issue - some store them in my documents (which may be on your c:\ drive if you haven't changed it).

I wonder.. is there a program that will let you see the differences in your registry (ie. before/after installing/running a program)? Such a thing would be useful in this regard..

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

How often do you reinstall? I do it once a year and don't care if I need to reinstall the 3 games I'm still actually playing of the 14 I had loaded. If I look at the disc and don't feel the wait to install it outweighs the desire to play it, I put it on Ebay.

 

[DaveSimmons]

This is where having an image of C: could help you -- restore the image instead of reformatting, and any games installed before the image was made will definitely work.

 

[Navid]

You are going to lose the shortcuts in the start menu of course. But, you can copy them back.

Many games place saved games in the "My Documents" folder. In my case, the "My Documents" folder is also on D. So, I have no problem with the save games. You should back those up before reformat.

I play some first-person shooters (Thief, Hitman, Iron Storm, Half-Life, Counter Strike, Half-Life 2, Red Faction (and 2), Far Cry, Soldier of Fortune, IGI2, ...). The only game I have had that absolutely needs a re-install is Halo. Far Cry needs a re-install. But, I have copied about 10 dll files that I restore after a reformat and it does not need a re-install.