Windows 7 - Installing a program from program files

I had to perform a drive swap so that my old installation of windows 7 and all my programs are on one drive, and my current installation is on the other. I would like to know if there is a way to get all of those programs on my current installation, and also recover my preferences, start menu etc.
Specifically when I try to run word or excel I get the message "the Operating system is not currently set up to run this program"
If anyone can help me that would be great, I don't care even if I have to dive into the to fix this but please someone help

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

I don't want to give you wrong advice, but I'm fairly certain that unless you cloned the old drive onto the new one you'll have to re-install all your programs on the new hard drive.

The reason you are getting the message you quoted is because it'll be a system registry issue i.e. Windows on the new hard drive can't see Excel on the old hard drive.

Unfortunately, most programs will not work unless you actually install them on whatever OS you want them to run on. This is because programs (ESPECIALLY big, complicated ones like Microsoft Office Suites) add files to locations other than just your program files folders; most commonly the Registry and your users' appdata folders. There's no reliable way to import all of these files successfully from all these other locations into a different computer.

However, it would be fairly simple to just clone your old hard drive onto your new one, as long as nothing is wrong with your old hard drive. Were you just changing hard drives to upgrade capacity, or was it because of a problem with your previous drive?

What happened was, my old motherboard died, so I upgraded that and the processor, but this caused my existing windows installation not to boot, so I cloned the boot drive onto a partition and overwrote the existing installation with a new one. I stated this in my first post but due to a typo it didn't come through, I don"t mind diving into and modifying the registery if i have to. so somebody please help me regardless of complexity

If you want an honest answer, it's probably not what you want to hear, but with a motherboard change you're best to carry out a clean install of Windows.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20082..._easy_way.html

Clean Install Windows 7

I did a clean install of windows
i know for a fact that it has to be a way to modify the registry so that my programs work

In that case, I'm afraid I can be of no further help.

I've had my fingers burned in the past by messing with the registry.

Is there a way I can view the old registry?

I honestly don't know.

You'll need to wait for someone more knowledgeable than me to chip in.

Hi,

I understand your relecutance, but I am in complete agreement with Andrew : cut your losses, forget the registry tampering, and install your programs fresh. You've already done a clean install of Windows, don't undo that by trying to tamper with the registry.

Regards,
Golden