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General discussion

Ghost

Feb 15, 2005 7:34PM PST

I have a program I use regularly that requires an activation process to run. Unfortunately, the company has gone under and the activation process is no longer available. If I ever uninstall the program or restore my computer, I won't be able to use it.

I have an external hard drive. I was wondering if I installed Ghost and made a copy of my hard drive, would I be able to run that program from the external drive?

Discussion is locked

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I'm afraid not.
Feb 15, 2005 9:50PM PST

The file written by Ghost is only understandable by Ghost to restore it. You can't use it from Windows.

The best to do: find in the Registry where the keys belonging to this program are, and export them to a reg.file. Then burn both the regfile and this programs folder from Program Files to a cd.
Try on another computer if the program will run if you copy it from the CD to the 'same' folder in Program Files and you import the registry information in its registry. It all depends on how and where the activation is being registered.

Hope this helps.

Kees

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I'm familiar with regedit
Feb 16, 2005 5:53AM PST

Is that where I find the registry key to export?

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Re: regedit.
Feb 16, 2005 7:39AM PST

Yes, that's the way to go. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software is the place to go. You'll note entries for software manufacturers mainly. Select the key you want to export, then Register>Export. Can be repeated for other keys.

Hope it works.


Kees

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I've exported and imported
Feb 16, 2005 8:30AM PST

the entire registry but never just one key. I understand how to export but, importing a single key into the registry has me puzzeled. Would you be so kind as to provide instructions or a link? Thanks.

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Re: export and import
Feb 17, 2005 6:32AM PST

Registry>Export makes a .reg file. You can have a look at it with Notepad, it's quite understandable.
Registry>Import lets you choose a .reg file to import. If it contains one key, it imports just that one key.

That's easy, isn't it?

As far as I know (but I've never done it, I think) you can also doubleclick on the .reg-file in Explorer to run regedit in import-mode on that file.

Hope this helps.


Kees

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that is easy
Feb 17, 2005 7:19AM PST

I thought I might have to find the right place to put it. That helps a lot. I found two keys for the software program and will export them both. My computer is running fine right now and I have no plans to upgrade or buy new. Nevertheless, you never know when you might need to reinstall XP. I have the installation CD but that doesn't do any good when you need to activate it and the company is no longer in business. Thanks. Gail

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Kees suggestion is excellent...
Feb 15, 2005 11:56PM PST

but if you trusted us with information such as the name of the program and who published it it is possible that it isn't as orphaned as you think.