Backing up files, folders? Before OS reinstallation.

[vRS_Pagey]

I currently have a 7 year old dell desktop which is soon to be replaced by a new laptop. I was planning on stripping back the desk top getting rid of 7 years worth of dross. There are however a few programs that I want to keep on there which will be lost when I reinstall or upgrade the OS, such as MS Office, software for the BT Home hub, drivers for the printer/scanner. Is there a way to back these up on an external hard drive? If so can someone give me an idiots guide on how to do it?

Cheers, Lee.

[bacillus]

You can't really back up an installed programme that has keys written to the registry and move it over to a different pc and expect it to work.

I assume your new laptop will come with windows 7 so you will need to look on the manufacturer of your printer/scanner for updated drivers. If none are available then you'll have to hope that win 7 has built in compatible generic drivers otherwise you'll need to replace/update your printer/scanner.

As for MS Office, win 7 will work ok with a fresh install of office 2000 and later versions.

hth

[vRS_Pagey]

Cheers mate, the printer will need reinstalling on the desktop anyway.  I think I have found most of the original program CD's now so should be ok, just can't find MS Office 2007, but that should be taken care of......

[john_o]

if you run the ms windows 7 upgrade advisor it will let you know any problems 

i suspect many of your discs may not be of any use (unless they were for Vista) but you can always get the drivers etc off the web.

just done 2 vista laptops with Windows 7 and its superb, so much better