Asking for backing up a single program help?

Question

I have a program that was activated online with the id from the disk. Ive been having issues with my copmuter and want to restore it the way it was from the factory. However the program company is out of business and i cant activate if i just do a reinstall. Anyone have any idea on how or if possible to just backup the program with the activation. Thank you

Answer 1

It depends on the program you are referring to. Since you did NOT name the program, any ideas here are very general and may NOT solve your problem.

Search for and _carefully_ inspect the folder for that program. It may be possible to copy that folder to a separate folder with a DIFFERENT file folder name. SOME (not all) place a file known as filename.ini or filename.inf ( inf or ini ) is the part that you are looking for. You should be able to read those files in notebook. Depending on your computer knowledge, you may be able to read the install info there.

WHATEVER you do, do NOT save what you read back to the same file or file folder.

Again, it MAY be possible to back up the entire folder and then copy it back to the new destination.

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The sixtyfour thousand dollar question is:
What entries were placed in your registry and where?
Were files added to your system folders or other folders outside the main folder. More and more, the answer to that question is yes which makes your goal more of a challenge.
I have been successful in some cases, but not others. Be jolly careful as some files that you may be temped to play with are used by other programs.