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recovering programs from acronis true image backup archive and using them on a new hard drive

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hello all,

i'm terribly sorry if my questions are completely elementary in nature (there is no search function available for the forum, so i'm not sure if and how this may have been covered before).

i created a back up of my old hard drive before it crashed a couple of weeks ago. those files are sitting on an external drive and are named "System_C_4_14_201001" thru "06".

now that i have a new machine, i would like to recover certain programs that i had downloaded and paid for (thus, they have license keys) and use them on my new machine. the drive i backed up was running XP Service pack 3, and they system i am using now is Windows 7 (64 bit).

i have already tried to recover most of the programs, and all seemed to be going smoothly...but then when i clicked on one of the recovered programs, it started and ran, but i had lost the enhanced functions and the program is looking for its license key. however, other programs that had apparently been recovered only contained empty folders.

is it possible to do what i'm trying to do? it was my understanding that running a system backup would allow me to recover programs that had been installed on my hard drive previously, and i had hoped that there would also be no need for me to obtain new licences once the programs were restored.

was i naive? or am i missing something? (oh, and i should add, that i only ran the recovery on one of the files/folders named "System_C_4_14_201001".)

thanks so much for any assistance you might be able to offer.

kindly,

joseph

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Hello Joseph,
In order to transfer your image on a new machine, you have to use Acronis True Image Home 2010 Plus Pack.
Depending on the version you used to do your backup, it's not sure that you will succeed with this software.

You can't recover installed programs without recovering the whole system, overwriting Windows 7 with your old XP.

Well you could have dual boot OS's - then you may even be able to splice program functionality with DD with practice! Not sure tho'.

Joseph,

Did you make a files and folders backup or complete disk images?

As has been mentioned it is not possible from a disk image backup to drag and drop the programs especially across OS's (it is possible, but not easy) due to the fact most software makes registry entries these days. There is also the added problem of some XP software needing to be updated to run on Windows 7.

However, even if you were using the same OS as that on the image, some software will know it is being restored to a new drive or OS installation and will revoke it's licence - I use Electra PCB routing software and a recovery of my OS will always lock the program requiring a new access key.

One thing I tend to do for downloaded programs is to put all the installer files into a download folder along with their serial numbers, plus keep any emails with serial numbers stored as well. Just in case I have a similar situation to yours, the installers can be run again and most (Electra notwithstanding) will accept their original serial numbers.