I recently got a nasty malware infection (Antivirus 2010, I think) and had to reformat the computer. I kept all the files on the hard drive and just reset the registry (and whatever else the program does). Now I’ve got all these game files installed but Windows doesn’t know that.
Right now, I want to reinstall MS Flight Sim X but the files are HUGE. It takes hours to install this game. It’d be much better if I could just find out what the registry keys are and input those manually or (hopefully) automatically.
You’re basically screwed. Even if you could find all the necessary Registry entries (which you can’t), entering them would take far, far longer than reinstalling. Some programs have literally hundreds or even thousands of items in the registry.
The registry is like a million different configuration files, all in one fast searchable database. If wiped it then you will need to restore it with a backup. There’s no magic fixregplease.exe you can run. You have literally deleted data.
Again, you cannot just wipe a disk and copy the executables back in. Find your installers and reinstall all your software.
Have you tried just running the game’s main .exe? Most games will just revert to defaults and recreate the registry settings automatically if they don’t find them.
If just running it doesn’t work, you could always try just installing over the old files. You should be asked whether you want to overwrite. Hopefully there will be a “No to all” button or holding down Shift and clicking No will work like it does in Explorer. If not, you can stay there clicking, or you can try AutoMouseClicker to do it for you.
Of course, you’ve probably already reinstalled by now. If you are doing it overnight or something, here’s hoping you installed it in a different directory and won’t get back to it asking you if you want to overwrite that first file.
As a guy who spent 15 years dealing with Windows software install issues, I can confirm that you must do a full install - just running the EXE will not work for anything but the most trivial of applications.
Thanks all. That’s disappointing. I actually just downloaded this program that does it for you, specifically for FSX. For all my other games, I’ll just suffer through the reinstall.
I agree 100% with this. I played around with this on a similar matter and I found I was able just to put the files back without messing with the registry but it gave me buggy results. Like the program would work most of the time, but parts of it were definately effected by the registry.
Since you can’t be sure, you’re gonna have to bite the bullet and reinstall.
In fact, sometimes I had to reinstall the product and then UN-install it to get rid of everything correctly then install it again
I still think you should take my advice about installing on top of the old installation. It will cut the time down dramatically if you don’t actually copy the files.
Then again, every time I’ve reinstalled Windows, I’ve always wound up just not installing anything until I’m about to use it.
I also want to mention that I got hit by that very malware (although I wasn’t the one who clicked on the link). Between running everything in a Limited account (with the help of suDown, ProcessGuard (which will prevent any unauthorized program from running), and Avira Antivir, something kept it from doing any damage. I restarted in safe mode, Googled the infection, ran SUPERAntiSpyware, and then checked the registry entries to make sure it was gone.
