Vista - tried to do a vista repair install - lost user settings, installed programs etc.

hello,

first im not sure, if my thread is in the right area, i didnt find one, which fits better - please move, if its placed wrong here.

yesterday i created a new vista dvd with vLite, because my windows folder was too big. after that i tried to do a "repair/upgrade install", like explained in this tutorial - Repair Install For Vista
as it turned out, it went completly wrong. i reinstalled vista on C: and the old version was moved to the folder Windows.old. obviously not that, what i want to accomplish. so now im online with a new user account - "lost" the user settings from my old user account, the programs are not "installed" anymore.

here is a small comparison of my situation:
- on C: i got now a new fresh windows and the old version in the folder in Windows.old
- Windows.old contains:
-- my old user settings
-- my old programms installed on C: (not a big deal, because i installed almost all programms on E: ---> other problem, see below)
-- the old windows folder himself
- as mentioned above i installed almost all programms on E: - obviously they are still there, but they are not "installed" anymore

so here are my key questions:
1. is there an easy was to transfer my old user settings to the new one?
2. is there an easy was to "install" all the programms on E:, without reinstall all per hand? eg. about registry import or something like that...

i hope it is clear, what my problems are - english is not my native language...

Hi there Tazz! Boy! thats a challenging fix that u r in!

Firstly, let me tell you that your decission to install programs on other drive *may* have saved you some of the trouble... Just try running their exes... Some programs just recreate their registry keys, but you will need to re-enter any serial nos. that the software requires.

Some s/w on the other hand *require other components* to be installed in order to run; like for example MS Visual C++ Redistributible. In this case, you can just download other components so that your programs can work.

Sorry, but unfortunately I will not be able to help you with anything else. Will post back If I dig up something else

Hi TaZz,

Since you installed your programs on E: instead of C: , that would be why you lost all associations to them during the upgrade reinstall.

You may still be able to copy from within the C:\Windows.old folder the contents of the old C:\Users\(user name) folder to your new one, from the upgrade install, to gain back some or most of your settings.

However, like Dragor posted, you may need to reinstall the programs again for them to run properly again. You may get lucky and be able to simply just have to create new shortcuts to the exe files for some of them.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

first of all, thanks for the replys...

i thought the general idea of the upgrade installation is not to reinstall vista and create a new user account? this is what i thought and because of that im thinking, that something went wrong yesterday.
i inserted the dvd while vista was running and after that, not a single point was like in the tutorial, which i mentioned above (Repair Install For Vista). first the setup asked me on which partition i want to install vista - i choose obviously the same, where my old vista was installed.
then i got a message, that there are still some windows files on C:, which are going to be moved to Windows.old and then the installation begun.
i thought, that is not what i want and tried to cancel the installation, when i got the message, that i wont be able to install or upgrade (!!! - this is what i wanted and why i didnt abort it) vista. so i was sitting here and waiting for the installation to finish, ending up with a hole new vista and user account - never had the chance to choose something like upgrade installation.
i'm describing this so detailed, because i want to prevent a misunderstanding, that u think, i successfully made a upgrade installation and the associations got lost because of the different partitions. nope, i just made a new installation...
i really have no clue, why it went this way but i guess its too late now...

now im looking at a lot of files and dont know, how they are linked together...
for example, i got the folder "ProgramData" in Windows.old, which has folders/files from programs from E:, i got AppData in Windows.old\users\old_user\, which cointains folders/files from programs of E: - all useless and ignore them?
just try to run them on E: and do what it takes to make them run / hope they recreate their registry keys?

other point about the user settings..
1. the old and the new user name are almost the same - despite the fact, that the first letter from the new one is written in upper case
a. should i try to replace the new one or
b. should i try to move it to users, so that they are coexisting and i will be able to log in the old one?
2. damn, now i forgot the 2nd point, when thinking about the 1st...

actually im installing the few programs, which were installed on C: - i guess, there should be no big deal in installing them on E:?

TaZz,

It sounds like it did a Custom install instead of a Upgrade install. See the screenshots in this tutorial (Clean Install From Upgrade Vista) to see if they look like what you have seen instead. That would explain why all of your settings and programs were lost. This is almost like doing a clean install, except you have a backup of the old installation in C:\Windows.old.

I would try running everything from within the C:\Windows.old\Users\(old_user) location to see if will still work. If it does, then you can simply copy everything in only that folder back into the C:\Users\(user name) location to have it back. If it doesn't then you will need to reinstall the programs. My guess is that it probably will not work since there are just to many unknown locations that programs place files at that they need.

Hmmm... Thanks for the detailed explanation, Tazz.

I have looked over your first post and am certain that there is only one thing left for you to do:

Copy the following folders from your "C:\Windows.old\<User name>\" folder to your "C:\Windows\<User name>" folder:

1. Appdata folder: This must contain at least around 60% to 70% of your old settings and I can guarantee it that if you use Firefox, your old settings will be resored.

2. ProgramData folder: This might be the place for the rest of your settings.

Be forewarned of the risk involved: This copy over procedure might not work because even if you have given the same user name for both accounts, there ought to be different ID nos. associated with them.
The worst case scenario would obviously be an inability to log on to your account.
Hence I would suggest you back up the *current* state of the above folders so that if anything were to go wrong, you would not have to endure through another install procedure.

P.S.: In the first post, your original reason for repairing/upgrading was that "your Windows folder had gotten too big". Looking at the situation you are in now, I guess you would've been better off with a bigger Windows folder than all the headache you had to go through. If all you needed was more space on your C:\ drive, you could have tried running Disk Cleanup and deleting all but the most recent Restore point; as the default reserved space for System Restore [15%] could grow quite big.

Please do not mis-understand me; I am not meaning to lecture you, but before taking such a drastic step as a repair, you could have posted about your big Windows folder problem, upon which some one from here would've gladly helped you out.

Hope this helps and once again; please do not mis understand my above advice as a lecture. I apologise in advance if I have in any way hurt you after reading all the way tll here.
Thank You

first of all...
im not really pissed or something like that... maybe i would have been when i was younger, but i guess im getting kind of used to stuff like that, besides that i didnt had such a problem for some time...
so of course im not upset, when u gave me tips, how i could have accomplished my target easier... first i thought, vLite is not a programm to create a new image, instead it would reduce vista live. while working with the program things become clear and when i had my new image, i had to find a way how to get use of it - in an easy way... which leds me to the upgrade tutorial...
actually i didnt think, that it would be such a big deal to do a upgrade installation... it sounds really easy in the tutorial and i guess it would be easy, when it goes the right way...

nope... not really... maybe it ended in a custom install...
here are the facts of "my installation":
i never had ...
- an opening screen
- to klick "install now" on the opening screen (ha, because it didnt have one... )
- to choose between check for updates - y/n
- to enter my product key (no, its not included in the vLite vista image)
- to choose the edition of the windows
- to choose between upgrade or custom installation

kind of weird... but again, too late... maybe something to find out and add to the tutorials...

@ brink
do i get u right, when u used (old user) and (user name) as spaceholders, that its not important, that the user names are the same? i thougt i could be, because some of setting files or something like that are associated with a specific user name...

so actual plan:
- waiting for a confirmation of brink
- try to run the programm in Windows.old
--> move the to new user
- include AppData & ProgramData (backup first the old folders)
- try to get the programs on E: to run easier now...

sounds ok?

thanks for the answers,
TaZz

TaZz,

I'm not sure what went wrong and where at, but this MS KB article may be able to help. It shows you how to restore your computer back to the previous Vista installation (C:\Windows.old).

How to restore a computer to a previous Windows installation after you install Windows Vista

Hope this helps,
Shawn

it sounds really interesting... i will take a look at it...
but one point irritates me:
Step 6: Restore the Boot.ini file for the previous Windows installation of Windows XP or of Windows 2000

does this make a different? what do u think about that? sorry for asking that specifc, but honestly - i got a lag of experience in that area, so im looking for your or others opinion... it looks for me like a "complicated intrusion", so i want to be sure, that it works and not ending up with a complete destroyed OS...

it would be also nice, if u would comment my last post (your confirmation of my these about user name, my actual plan)

TaZz,

Step 6 is only if the previous installation was XP or Win 2000. Yours was another version of Vista, so you would skip that step.

In Step 5, do the second part that is for Vista.

I would recommend that you use this method instead of manually doing it as you described. This method is safer to do.