C:/D: drive switch messes up programs and settings

[Guest kombucha]

I installed Vista on a separate HD (it was actually S: in XP) and of course in Vista that drive is C:, taking the place of my XP drive, as is to be expected.

But I had tons of programs (iTunes, Opera, Trillian, Office...) installed on the same drive and partition as XP, and now they all don't work so well. A few (like Opera) will start up but will have first-install settings, and the rest (like Office) won't even load. How can I remedy this? Is there a way to make those programs think they are still on the C: drive? There isn't actually room for them, so I can't just merge drives... Any ideas? I'd hate to have to reinstall dozens of programs, and then have to reconfigure them all, but it's looking grim.

Thanks!

[Spooky]

are you sure you didn't do an upgrade to XP?

If you installed Vista on its own drive in a clean partition and you had XP on the original C:\ drive it should have automatically set up a dual boot and shouldn't have touched anything on your XP drive.

I installed Vista on a separate HD (it was actually S: in XP) and of course in Vista that drive is C:, taking the place of my XP drive, as is to be expected.

But I had tons of programs (iTunes, Opera, Trillian, Office...) installed on the same drive and partition as XP, and now they all don't work so well. A few (like Opera) will start up but will have first-install settings, and the rest (like Office) won't even load. How can I remedy this? Is there a way to make those programs think they are still on the C: drive? There isn't actually room for them, so I can't just merge drives... Any ideas? I'd hate to have to reinstall dozens of programs, and then have to reconfigure them all, but it's looking grim.

Thanks!

[Camarade_Tux]

Had the same thing.

And I used Vista's setup to create the new partition.

Of course, the swap only appeared under Vista.

@kombucha, try to run diskmgmt.msc.

Right-click on your volume, select change drive letter and select add, and last add a folder.

You may have to change XP's drive letter first.

Edited November 25, 2006 by Camarade_Tux

[dAbReAkA]

a friend of mine had the same problem with the partitions when he installed by booting from the dvd.. so he formated vista's partition and installed from XP through daemon tools.. otherwise the drives are so f***en messed up..

vista's partition becomes C, and every next is an incrementation of the previous.. when it hits the last partition, it starts from the beginning if there are drives before vista's partition - that really sux..

[fizban2]

I installed Vista on a separate HD (it was actually S: in XP) and of course in Vista that drive is C:, taking the place of my XP drive, as is to be expected.

But I had tons of programs (iTunes, Opera, Trillian, Office...) installed on the same drive and partition as XP, and now they all don't work so well. A few (like Opera) will start up but will have first-install settings, and the rest (like Office) won't even load. How can I remedy this? Is there a way to make those programs think they are still on the C: drive? There isn't actually room for them, so I can't just merge drives... Any ideas? I'd hate to have to reinstall dozens of programs, and then have to reconfigure them all, but it's looking grim.

Thanks!

this is expected behavior for all your apps, since all these applications were installed under XP, why would you expect them to work in Vista? there is no registry information telling vista how to load the programs let alone where the applications reside. if you were to boot back in to XP, your XP drive will be C: again. Then all your apps will work in XP. if you want your apps to work in vista you have 2 options

1. reinstall them on your vista Partition

2. Upgrade your XP partiton to Vista, i did this with my XP install and 98% of my apps came back working the upgrade proccess has radically been changed, if you still don't trust it though, reinstall all your apps in you Vista partition.

[Camarade_Tux]

I installed Vista on a separate HD (it was actually S: in XP) and of course in Vista that drive is C:, taking the place of my XP drive, as is to be expected.

But I had tons of programs (iTunes, Opera, Trillian, Office...) installed on the same drive and partition as XP, and now they all don't work so well. A few (like Opera) will start up but will have first-install settings, and the rest (like Office) won't even load. How can I remedy this? Is there a way to make those programs think they are still on the C: drive? There isn't actually room for them, so I can't just merge drives... Any ideas? I'd hate to have to reinstall dozens of programs, and then have to reconfigure them all, but it's looking grim.

Thanks!

this is expected behavior for all your apps, since all these applications were installed under XP, why would you expect them to work in Vista? there is no registry information telling vista how to load the programs let alone where the applications reside. if you were to boot back in to XP, your XP drive will be C: again. Then all your apps will work in XP. if you want your apps to work in vista you have 2 options

1. reinstall them on your vista Partition

2. Upgrade your XP partiton to Vista, i did this with my XP install and 98% of my apps came back working the upgrade proccess has radically been changed, if you still don't trust it though, reinstall all your apps in you Vista partition.

As far as I'm concerned, the problem remains : why aren't drive letters kept.

When I browsed my drives for the first time under Vista, I really 'ed.

[Spooky]

Drive letters are kept, they just aren't in the order you expect after you install Vista on a second drive in your computer. If you already have XP installed on one drive, and then install Vista on another drive, Vista does what the industry standard expects and this is that the first Boot drive in the computer is C:\. This means that what ever OS you boot into its drive will be drive C:\. This is normal expected behavior, its not a problem, its how things work. The fact that your applications were installed in XP, and then you installed Vista, doesn't mean your apps installed in XP will continue to operate in Vista. You need to install those apps again in Vista so the registry entries will be created and all the other associated stuff for Vista will be satisfied just like they were when you installed them in XP. Why on earth would you expect your apps installed in another OS (XP) to work on a completly different OS (Vista)?

Now on the other hand, if you had done an upgrade (upgraded XP to Vista) your apps might still work. If you installed Vista in the same drive partition as XP in a different directory some way or another then your XP is hosed and the apps you had installed in XP wouldn't be expected to work.

I installed Vista on a separate HD (it was actually S: in XP) and of course in Vista that drive is C:, taking the place of my XP drive, as is to be expected.

But I had tons of programs (iTunes, Opera, Trillian, Office...) installed on the same drive and partition as XP, and now they all don't work so well. A few (like Opera) will start up but will have first-install settings, and the rest (like Office) won't even load. How can I remedy this? Is there a way to make those programs think they are still on the C: drive? There isn't actually room for them, so I can't just merge drives... Any ideas? I'd hate to have to reinstall dozens of programs, and then have to reconfigure them all, but it's looking grim.

Thanks!

this is expected behavior for all your apps, since all these applications were installed under XP, why would you expect them to work in Vista? there is no registry information telling vista how to load the programs let alone where the applications reside. if you were to boot back in to XP, your XP drive will be C: again. Then all your apps will work in XP. if you want your apps to work in vista you have 2 options

1. reinstall them on your vista Partition

2. Upgrade your XP partiton to Vista, i did this with my XP install and 98% of my apps came back working the upgrade proccess has radically been changed, if you still don't trust it though, reinstall all your apps in you Vista partition.

As far as I'm concerned, the problem remains : why aren't drive letters kept.

When I browsed my drives for the first time under Vista, I really 'ed.

[dAbReAkA]

it's an expected behavior, although confusing..

Edited November 25, 2006 by dAbReAkA