reloading xp - daddy's no longer a hero

My daughter came home from college with her pc which could not boot. Blue screen causijng 0xed. I ran chkdsk off the install cd and everything came back. All her applications and data. I noticed that search was complaining about "missing companion software" and I got into standby but could not get out. So I reloaded the operating system with the option of leaving the file sturcture in tact. Okay.

When asked for a user profile, i just made up one. Now, I don't see any of her applications. Only the trash can is on the window.

I notice that a subdirectory named with her old profile name (I think) is there. I believe the apps are underneath. They are simply not registered. How do I recover such that all data is still in tact? For instance AIM is there. How do i reinstall such that her settings do not have to be reentered? Same for OUTLOOK. How do i install and not loose here mail?
Is there an automatice "Re-Resgister" or find appls or something?

 

Did you try putting her profile name in? If you created a new profile, you won't see any of the Apps she had.

 

Del,
Forgive my ignorance. What am i entering her profile name into? I am a stranger to xp. thank you for you patientce.

 

When you said:
When asked for a user profile, i just made up one. Now, I don't see any of her applications. Only the trash can is on the window.
Did you try putting her user name in?

 

the prompt for a profile name came up only during setup. Are you suggesting that there is an add profile command somewhere? And then to put her name in there?

 

Click START and choose LOG OFF. This will take you to a LOG ON screen. If her name isn't there, then enter her name under the NEW USER or GUEST. (I never log off XP so I forgot which one is there) Then enter her name.

 

I did as requested. the old profile is gone. Looks like reloading xp requires that I reload my apps. so office, aim, etc. must be reinstalled.

let's call it the night.

Thank you everyone.

 

Another option, try renaming the old USER (you posted you found it, right?) to your new USER name and name the NEW user to something completely different. Confused? I hope not.. lol See if XP logs onto it's configuration. A shot in the dark?

 

Which version of XP is it? I did a reinstall of XP Home and had the same problem.

It "hides" all the former user's applications and stuff, but it's all there, as long as you didn't do a format.

You will have to reinstall off the the applications she had installed though, that's what I had to do. The registry settings were wiped out with the reinstall. You can install the applications back into the same folders where they were before over themselves. Then they will be back in the registry and will work.

Try opening My Ccmputer, c drive, (if that's the hard drive), documents and settings. You should see a folder with her old user name. All the stuff like favorites, cookies, My Documents (or Owner's Documents), will be in there. There will also be a folder for her new user name.

It's a little like being schizophrenic There should be a way to merge the stuff from the old to the new user but I haven't found it yet. If it's XP Home, you might have to go into safe mode and take ownership of some of the files and folders.

Hope this helps.

 

Also - look in the Program files and you will see all the old applications are there, they just won't work because they have been deleted from the registry. The data will still be there too. Like all my Palm desktop data was all still there and all my Word and EXcel files.