Hard Drive Removed yet windows still thinks the programs are there

[killercow]

I just recently had one of my two hard drives replaced. The hard drive with the windows installation and a few programs installed on it works fine, however it still thinks the programs from the other hard drive are still on my system and therefore has them listed in my programs and the start menu and everything.

I was wondering if there was a way for windows to easily remove anything that is no longer there.

Thanks, and I hope I wrote that in a way that everyone can understand.
-Conor
KC

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Well since the programs are no longer available, their uninstallers are not available either. If you try add/remove you'll probably get an error but try it anyway first.

You can run softwares to clean up your registry and programs folders etc, but I'm not so sure Windows has any native app that will do it for you. Clean Sweep by Norton comes to mind but I'm sure there are many other programs to 'tidy' up your drive. CCleaner?

You can look for anything using the run box and then delete them manually I suppose... But you'll still need to clean your registry afterwards.

[PrntRhd]

I believe FTT is correct, CCleaner will work to remove most of the no longer valid gunk. That and free too.
www.ccleaner.com

[killercow]

Thanks a lot for the link Fruss Tray Ted and PrntRhd. It worked great, however the start > programs menu is still cluttered. I guess I'll clean out the empty spots myself. Thanks again :)

[Steve]

If you still have that other HDD and if it functional, you could install it as a slave and use the uninstallers that come with the programs or the Windows control panel, to remove the programs.

[Sylvander]

This is a good illustration that it's a good idea to keep ALL the installed programs [and Windows] on the same partition as the registry.
In otherwords keep them all on C:
And make a backup of course. :D

[killercow]

heh heh, unfortunately for me my C: is full :rolleyes:
I guess all I can do now is hope it doesn't crash again :)
Thanks again

[Sylvander]

I keep only "Windows" [Win98] & "Program Files" folders [plus odds] on C:
These 2 folders occupy about 95% of the [1.7 GB] used space on the 3,000 MB partition.

"My Documents", emails, address book, Favourites etc occupy 350 MB of the 2,000 MB D: partition.

All the data files are on other partitions.