Whats the most important files to back when reformating apart from personal docs. Im talking about drivers, avs. Can you back up things like real player,acrobat ect?
if they're installation programs, setup.exe ones then u can but in they are installed and u go to programs, real player folder and copy it, it wont work becoz its got the registry keys nd everything on that installation of windows
well basically i don´t use CDr´s i use CD / DVD +-RW, at least i will when my new drive arrives tomorrow, cos with a RW disc you can blank discs to be used again (i think newer drives can also delete and overwrite data already on the disc) your best bet is to create disks CD containing the installation files for real player, acrobat etc.
When you format your computer, its always a good practice to install all the drivers and softwares again because as izzy said, all the softwares comes with a registry file and I've not heard about any program which copy the specific registry and paste again when required. There are couple of things which I would like to share with you. Whenever you download software installation file, dont delete it after installing the software because you might need it soon again unless you are running out of space. Format and divide your partitions accordingly. Suppose you have a drive of 60 GB. Partition it into three drives. Suppose C,D,E. where as C (10GB max) is for windows, D (5-10Max) is for your personal doccuments and E (30-35GB) is for all your songs, videos, softwares etc. By doing this, whenever you want to install windows again you dont have to format the whole 60GB again, which will save your lots of time and data.
It will take time to download back again to your computer but if you have it on your computer already then you just need to run the setup.
All I usually backup for people would be files stored in My Docs, Pictures, Email from OE or whatever they may use, address books and their internet connection settings (user/pass). I see no reason to backup drivers because in most cases you can easily find a driver in windows for your hardware. As for backing up programs such as Adobe Reader, I just wouldn't. It's easiest to just download the installer from their site.
