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General discussion

Programs not seen by XP

Dec 15, 2003 1:52PM PST

I just updated my laptop from W2K to XP but XP is having problems seeing my programs. All my programs are still in the Programs file under the C drive and can be seen if you open up the file BUT when I open Add/Delete Software, nothing shows up. Its as if XP doesn't see anything I've previously installed. The programs themselves all work if I double click them which means they still exist. But how do I go about getting XP to recognize all my programs again so I can manage them? For example, my Norton Antivirus isn't loading at start up anymore and that's pretty important to me. I've reinstalled a few necessary programs but in doing so, XP never asked me if I wanted to replace the existing files. This tells me that XP thinks I'm installing these for the first time. Usually this shouldn't be a problem but my laptop is running short on harddrive space and I'm not certain if XP is automatically writing over the existing programs or actually using up more space by installing something I already have. Any thoughts?

A quick note, the person who installed XP for me decided to keep W2k at boot up so I could choose between either OS. I really don't want 2K anymore, how do I go about fully deleting that?

Discussion is locked

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Re:Programs not seen by XP
Dec 15, 2003 8:00PM PST

"A quick note, the person who installed XP for me decided to keep W2k at boot up so I could choose between either OS."

Looks like you have a dual-boot setup.
But do you have two partitions? A C & D Drive?
Check in My Computer.
If only C Drive then you have both XP & W2K installed on the same partition which is not a good idea.

I suspect this to be the case since the old programs are still in the drive.

On separate partitions you won't see the old programs.

And if you did an upgrade the old programs will be listed in Add or Remove Programs.

Look in the C Drive and see if you find two Folders: WINDOWS(XP) + WINNT (W2K).

Doing this means you've lost at least 1.5~2GB of HDD space required for XP in addition to that used by W2K.

The cleanest solution is to start over and do a clean install wiping out the HDD and just install XP.
But make sure that you backup your files & settings and that you have a W2K disk if you are using the upgrade XP version.

Alternatively you can edit the boot.ini to remove W2K from the boot menu and then delete the WINNT Folder.
See Edit BOOT.INI

You will also have to reinstall all your programs in both cases for XP to manage them in Add or remove programs.

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Re:Re:Programs not seen by XP
Dec 16, 2003 3:16AM PST

Thanks alot for the response. It does look like both XP and W2K are installed on C which is causing the problems. I've become content to the fact that I'll have to manually reinstall everything. One last question though, once i remove W2K from the boot setup, its harmless to just outright delete the WINNT file?

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Re:Programs not seen by XP
Dec 15, 2003 8:44PM PST

"I just updated my laptop from W2K to XP but XP is having problems seeing my programs. All my programs are still in the Programs file under the C drive and can be seen if you open up the file BUT when I open Add/Delete Software, nothing shows up. Its as if XP doesn't see anything I've previously installed. The programs themselves all work if I double click them which means they still exist. But how do I go about getting XP to recognize all my programs again so I can manage them? "

Since the programs run, it seems you have the dual-OS install on drive C: Let's discuss a few points.

1. "Its as if XP doesn't see anything I've previously installed."

That's how it is supposed to work. You'll have to create shortcuts, menus and such or reinstall the programs.

2. "BUT when I open Add/Delete Software, nothing shows up."

Again, this is the way of Windows. All versions did this. I do know what history is behind this lacking, but it's only historic and doesn't interest many. In short you have to reinstall said software to repopulate the Add/Remove area.

Bob

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Re:Re:Programs not seen by XP
Dec 16, 2003 3:21AM PST

Thanks for the help, I've already begun the long reinstallation process. I don't suppose you would know why Microsoft doesn't include a software detect with the Add/Remove Programs page? Seems kind of intuitive to have one in my mind.

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You asked why.
Dec 16, 2003 3:33AM PST

The history of this goes all the way back to DOS, Windows and OS/2 plus a tidbit design called the Object oriented file system (OS/2.)

DOS never had such a feature and Windows was on top of DOS. Microsoft was not the premiere OS of the day and as such could not "dictate" that software install in some way or be "registered" with the OS. This follows through to today. There is no hope to force all software developers to add code to all their applications to make sure that the software shows up in the Add/Remove tool.

The Object Oriented file system that was discussed by IBM and Microsoft years ago could have fixed this issue by showing "ownerships" in the file system so that a list of owners (programs) could have made it easy to know what file opens with what application or what application files belong together.

All this was dismissed as costing too much in disk space, CPU power and more programming in the OS.

You will find some of these ideas in the Macintosh OS's, but that's another story.

Bob