Vista Reinstallation

Okay. Something went wrong with loading Vista, so I reinstalled Vista 64bit over a previous installation as I didn't have anything backed up yet and I didn't want to lose all that music and shit. Was just wondering if there's a way to "copy" back the installation settings so everything is back to normal? I was thinking just copying all the Windows files and program files (which were kept in a folder called window.old when I reinstalled over) over the ones current on C:. But it sounds pretty risky. And system restore is not an option.

you can't recover 32bit settings on 64bit. If you'd reinstalled 32bit over 32bit it should have kept the settings.

Shit. I did actually reinstall 32bit over 64bit originally. Could I still get my settings back?

unlikely.

Oh well, I just was able to shortcut the applications which did work, delete and then reinstall the ones that didn't work, and just change some settings around.

Say it is a 32-bit to 32-bit reinstall, how would you recover you settings in Vista or XP?I need to reformat.

if you're reformatting, use the file and settings transfer wizard. (most be done before reformatting). If you're not formatting, a reinstall to the same folder preserves most settings.

As Loonylion has said before, it doesn't work that way. Only with the same system's installing over each other. If you're gonna reformat.. buy a cheap external harddrive to zip all your data too, or a USB Card if it's that much!