Copying windows.old over windows?

[Taisenki]

I have windows 7 ultimate 64 bit and earlier today it decided to update and it completely wrecked my computer. By a complete coincidence my hard drive also failed and this threw me off the trail of what I should of done.

So I just did a fresh install of windows. I really wish I just did a repair now but no point dwelling in the past. What I need now is to get back to my old data even though it is broke. And just use the repair tool from the CD. I can see guides online about reverting to older versions of Windows (like Vista or XP) but nothing on the same version.

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So I was just wondering what would happen if I just brutally copied my windows.old file to my windows folder and overwritten everything. Yes I have made back ups I just thought I should check if anyone knows the answer or an alternative method =)

All I'm really after is all my registries back. I had a lot of music and art software to keep inserting disk after disk to just get the registries back. And I imagine if I was able to recover the previous windows install that I'd get a hell of a lot more back too.

 

[richnrockville]

Welcome Taisenki to the windows forums.

I don't believe that it would be a good idea to copy windows.old over the top of windows.

Too many things could go wrong. But if you have a good backup of your programs and data, then go for it but I don't think that it would work like you think it would.

Rich

Best to do a bare bones install and start over after you have saved what data you need.

 

[Taisenki]

It's the registries that I really want. It's a pain to have to get everything back. I do a hell of a lot of music and art and whilst the data is safe and secure on another hard drive I can't actually use them until I reinstall all the registries. It's going to take a few weeks to get back on my feet. Things like Symphonic Choirs/Ministry of Rock/Titan synth/Photoshop and so much more.