How-To Geek

I wanted to test drive Windows 8 Customer Preview for a research project for my A+ class, but with school, school and more school it was too hard to get used to a new OS and do assignments and teach. I asked my instructor what to do and she said reinstall Windows 7 which I did. Now I boot to my recovery partition. I'm nervous to do to much because I don't want to lose the info and files I have in C:

On my load screen I have
Windows 7 Home Premium (RECOVERY)[in a small partition that was supposed to be for recovery],
Windows 7 Home Premium[which does not run in safe mode or normally because it's not a genuine copy it says], and
Windows 8 which will not run at all.

I can boot into the RECOVERY partition in both save mode and normally. I can't use the MiniTool Partition Wizard program that I got. When I try to load it from a boot able CD I go through steps 1-4 but at the install, step 4 I get: Windows cannot find 'P:\Users\username\Downloads\pwpe7.exe' make sure you types the name correctly, and then try again. I think that is says it installed but it doesn't really because it's 10mb and there is 0 space in this partition left.

I don't want to do a clean install of Windows 7 because I'm not sure what I will never get back. I am backed up to carbonite but all my passwords are in Windows 7 and Norton 360. I don't have my license numbers for programs because they were saved in my Incredimail email folders.

I am an old dog learning new tricks and I just feel like this is fix able, I'm just not sure how. I don't have any Geeky friends to bounce ideas off of. My computer has been messed up for over a week now and I'm getting stressed out.

ANY help would be greatly appreciated. I've been all over the net but I like here the best so I decided to ASK here before asking elsewhere.

LT.

I did not dual boot. I guess that was a mistake but, I'm new to all of this.

IF I just clean reinstall I'll lose all the passwords saved, licences and key codes? I've never done a reinstall, wiped out everything and replaced it.

I'm difficult because I really believe that this is fixable. It's not a virus it's just a mess between one OS instal. and another. Am I wrong? I think it's just a matter of manually putting things back where they should be. I thought the partition tool would help, but it won't run...YET. I'm still thinking I can get this to work ,but how much time will I use up?

If you can help me understand how to put things back once I reinstall I'm on board but if I will loose things I need I just don't want to rebuild everything from scratch. I have tried to get into carbonite but with out my password I can't even do that.

PS. I love incredimail, it's never caused me a lick of trouble and I delete everything off of it that I don't use. I'm girly that way, I love a pretty GUI. What other all in one email programs are there? Outlook is ugly.

OK, HOW do I install on a specific partition? That would be great!

Incredimail - I kill all the search buddies, home page, shortcuts, that come with every update. As soon as I update I do my search and distroy (me, manually because I know what they stick in their updates.) *sniff*, *pout* I'll let it go... I do love pretty though.

Thanks I'll be back in a while and let you know how this goes.

bye Incredimail...

Dreammail is a nice alternative for your email.
If memory serves me right it also has a set of inbuild emoticons.

And did you know you can make your own eml templates to use in most email programs?
Just create an email with your favorite layout (or a bunch of emails LOL) and instead of sending them you choose 'save to'.
But make sure the output format is 'eml'.
Save them on a USB or something and then in any other program you still have your nice bells and whistles :)
if you want I'll help you later on to create some nice templates and set up a folder with images you regularly use.

But that is for once your have your pc up and running smoothly again - first make sure you backup everything and make sure you get your passwords from incredimail. Xhi will be of more help in that regard than I am ;)

I'm sure all it needs is the driver for the LAN adapter. Get it from the Computer or motherboard manufacturer's web site.

In every emailprogram I have ever used it was possible to save emails as eml, and if memory serves me right Dreammail supports it too (haven't worked with Dreammail myself, but did some global testing a while back for someone who was also on 7 and looking for something other than windows live mail).

An eml file is a sort of html file but then for email, so you can make changes to the text, to the images etc.
When you use specific fonts however you have to make sure those are fonts the receiver also uses or he won't see it as you intend it.

Here's a template I saved from when I had Dreammail installed. Dreammail has a lot of nice templates by itself and you can easily save new ones you make.
I opened this eml file (made in Dreammail) with Windows Mail. So you see - you can use it anywhere you like :)

Edit: Carol Oyl wrote some instructions and tips on how to create beautiful emails. Maybe a bit more elaborate than what you're looking for, but very informative :)

You can delete the Windows.old folders if you do not have any files from old installs that you still need to recover.

The Dell download is tricky. Try, try , again.

Ill be lurking nearby.