Microsoft Office Disappeared

[www.gregswealthplan.com]

I recently maried and moved. We consolidated everything as well as our hard
drives. I took my wifes hard drive out and installed it into my computer as
a slave drive. She had office 2003 on her computer and I had office xp.
After installing the drive, the drive was recognized alonf wuth its content.
However, all Office programs were gone. I physically searched the folders
and couldn't find them. The icons are gone. In addition, the programfolder
on the satrt menu won't open. Any ideas?

 

[boblarson]

Greg:

Welcome to the Discussion Groups.

Not sure why you wouldn't be able to find folders, but as to why the program
wouldn't work when you moved the drive over to the other computer - First of
all you said you added the drive as a slave. Your Windows installation on
the master drive would be the one that would continue to boot. The icons are
not there because it wasn't installed on your computer, it was on your
wife's. You can't just move a hard drive and get all the programs, unless
you had transferred the drive to a new machine and it was the master drive
and the only windows installation. However, it isn't quite as easy as that.
There are driver issues, and hardware that is different.

So, basically when you moved the hard drive over, you should only be able to
access the files that have not been protected (My Documents would not work
any more on that drive because Windows security would know that you weren't
authorized to view them. You might be able to take ownership of them by
right clicking on the folder and selecting the Security tab and then use the
change owner (if it's available).

The real simple answer is that you'll need to reinstall the programs if you
want to use them on your computer.
--
Bob Larson
Access World Forums Super Moderator
____________________________________
Access 2000, 2003, 2007, SQL Server 2000, Crystal Reports 10/XI, VB6
WinXP, Vista

 

[XS11E]

www.gregswealthplan.com

However, all Office programs were gone. I physically searched
the folders and couldn't find them. The icons are gone. In
addition, the programfolder on the satrt menu won't open. Any
ideas?

See boblarsen's reply for why, here's a fix that might work for you:

Some BIOSs will allow you to select the boot drive. You can enter the
BIOS and select your wife's former HD as the boot drive, then exit
saving changes. The computer will now boot up her old HD and you'll
have to do some repairs to the OS to get everything working again but
when you're done you'll effectively have two computers. By entering
the BIOS at boot you'll be able to select either your HD or your Wife's
HD. I've used this instead of dual booting and it's worked very well
for me, it might be worth it for you also.