Windows In the event of catastrophe (touch wood)

Discussion in 'Software' started by ModSquid, 11 Jul 2013.

  1. ModSquid

    ModSquid Multimodder

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    Just a quickie, chaps - whenever I set up a new install I move the users, prog files and progdata folders to the D: drive on the basis that should I need to reinstall Windows, I can do so over the C: drive without losing any data or settings.

    A thought just occurred to me though - if I did have to do this and followed the process through, deleting the above new folders from C: (and obviously reinputting the junctions etc. as prior), would everything still work, given the untouched, older folders on D: might be referencing a different registry?

    And so, is there any point in moving everythng over to D: at all? A lot can be found online espousing the benefits but it seems moot if nothing will work again afterwards.

    Thanks in advance!
     
  2. kenco_uk

    kenco_uk I unsuccessfully then tried again

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    The only things I back up are either pst/nk2 files (or dbx/wab) and the profile desktop/documents/favourites folders and possibly any stray files/folders on the root.
    I think you're right in that, if you were to restore, you'd have to reinstall programs anyway as they create registry entries.
     
  3. ModSquid

    ModSquid Multimodder

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    Hmm...interesting. And thanks for getting back!

    I do backups using DriveImage XML (and might be switching to Acronis once I've tested it out), so I'm not too fussed about being able to restore from those. However, I do worry about what happens if I need to reinstall in the event of one of the images containing any issue ie. if a problem went unnoticed and any re-imaging just brought the problem back again.

    Or, as happened recently, I upgraded from XP to 7 and had to do a completely clean install. Then it's a chore to reload all the programs (but it sounds like I might have to anyway).
     

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