I had to re-install Windows XP on my work laptop, and it is causing me a ROYAL pain. All of my e-licenses are not recognized, and it isn't recognizing my installation of Microsoft Office either. Also, I'd like to restore my DeskTop, STart Menu, and my address book. Can anyone help???

Dola. It also isn't recognizing my sound card.

did you reinstall all those apps? Office, the e-license programs, etc - they wont work until that's done once you've reinstalled windows.

Originally posted by Draft Dodger
did you reinstall all those apps? Office, the e-license programs, etc - they wont work until that's done once you've reinstalled windows. No, I haven't. They are still there though. I can see them on the hard drive. Also, will I lose a license for the e-license games such as OOTP5?

I'll go ahead and re-install the things I have on disk though..

AS for the sound card, there isnt much you can do with a laptop soundcard. I would imagine that you need to track down an XP driver for it. One should have came with your laptop, since I am assuming that Xp was originally installed on the machine when you bought it.

If I may ask, Why did you need to reinstall XP to begin with?

Yah, XP is very picky...you need to make sure you have the exact XP driver for that sound card before it will work.

Originally posted by Airhog
If I may ask, Why did you need to reinstall XP to begin with? It went into an endless reboot cycle. It would go most of the way through the boot sequence, but before finishing and giving me a desktop view, it would simply reboot. I talked with Tech Support for the company that made the laptop, and we trouble-shot our way through some stuff, and then tried doing a repair, but it didn't work, so he went with a re-install. The good news is that everything appears to still be there. The bad news so far has been that it is a royal pain to get XP to recognize that everything is still there.

Ah, I have yet to have a problem with XP, but It seems that chief rum had the exact same problem.

Originally posted by SkyDog
No, I haven't. They are still there though. I can see them on the hard drive. Also, will I lose a license for the e-license games such as OOTP5?

the programs are there, but the registry entries for them get wiped out when Windows is re-installed.

they wont work until you reinstall them (unless you are a wizard at editing registrys on your own)

Sounds like a registry issue. All the programs are there, but the info that was held in the registry is now gone since you reinstalled Windows.

When you buy elicense, they usually give you 2. As long as you have only used 1 license, you should still have 1 left over. If not, contact ViaTech, they seem to be very understading to these problems.

dola,

DD beat me to the punch. I hate you. :P

Originally posted by Airhog
Ah, I have yet to have a problem with XP, but It seems that chief rum had the exact same problem. The Tech Support guy at Netlux said while it isn't a common problem, it is something that happens from time to time.

OK.........

So I re-installed Office XP, but Outlook didn't pick up my old address book and the e-mails in my inbox. Seeing as I have over 1,800 e-mail addresses in that address book, this could be a slight problem. Anyone know where those files might be found, so I can stick 'em in the proper directory???

1800 addresses, damn....SkyDog, if I find out you're a spammer... ;)

they're all from HM

Originally posted by sabotai
1800 addresses, damn....SkyDog, if I find out you're a spammer... ;) LOL....Nope. Believe it or not, I have either met in person, or "know" via message boards, just about every single person in my address book, with the exception being the less than 100 "random" folks from across the country who have bought my CD without having heard me play anywhere or having had message board interaction with me. The huge majority of the addresses are work-related: middle school kids, high school kids, donors, alumni, and their parents (who have as many as four addresses--mom work, mom home, dad work, dad home). It adds up very quickly. My land-mail list of kids involved in Young Life and currently in high school and middle school is over 400, and I probably have e-mail addresses for 300+ of those.

Do a find for *.pst files. You should find two outlook.pst files, one of which will be your old mail (the larger one). Just note the location and when you open outlook there is an "open pst file" option or something like that. Eventually you'll want to copy the old one over the new one. As for the settings, I think you'll have to reconfigure them.

Daimyo:

I did just that, and came up with no *.pst files. Is it possible that they were erased during re-install?

Originally posted by Airhog
Ah, I have yet to have a problem with XP, but It seems that chief rum had the exact same problem.

SkyDog, that does sound eerily similar to my problem.

Of course, I am still pretty certain my problem was a hard drive hardware problem, since my old drive also wouldn't format completely (it would lock up in the middle of the process). I'm still hoping to break into that drive and dig some files out of it or salvage it in some way.

I ended up buying a new hard drive and reinstalling Windows XP. Incidentally, I too had Office and it came with the computer. But I never got the disks, so now I don't have Office. Kinda dumb, IMO. Why give me programs, but not give the disks? Anyway, since I did pay for them (like I said, it was part of the deal I got buying the computer), I'm actually waiting to meet up with some friends who have Office who can reinstall it on my computer with their CDs (a practice I would never do except that I had indeed paid for these programs).

Since I switched hard drives, though, our similarities end there, and I am not sure what to tell you. I had to reinstall what I had. On my gamnes, BTW, I just redownloaded (or used the CDs) to install them and used the same licensing codes and registration keys as before. This was how I got OOTP running again, for instance. Same key. So it should still work for you if you want to use the same key.

Chief Rum

Another place to check for the email files is:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

All of this assumes you're using Outlook and not Outlook Express... I've never used Express so I wouldn't be any help there, but i bet you can find the answer on google or on microsoft's knowledge base, or more likely from someone else here.

Daimyo:

Yeah, that's where the e-mail files are on my desktop. That folder doesn't even exist on the laptop though.

Anyone know any good directory recovery software? :(

Oh, if anyone does, let me know--I might be able to use it on my old hard drive as well. The directory recovery software, that is.

CR

Now, if it comes down to it, I have an outlook.pst file on my desktop, updated about 5 months ago, from my laptop. The question I have at this point though, is where would I put it?

Try this:
http://mmmservices.web.cern.ch/mmmservices/Faq/contents/0_0_addressbook.asp

or this has some more general Outlook stuff:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_o.htm

I'm confused,
It was my understanding that the address book was a .WAB file.
Not sure what .PST file is. I needed to locate my address book a while back for some reason that I can't remember right now and this is what I searched for to recover it.

Silver:

If I remember, Outlook Express uses WAB, and Outlook uses PST

Originally posted by SkyDog
Silver:

If I remember, Outlook Express uses WAB, and Outlook uses PST

I think you are right. I use Express.