Is there any way to gather all files and registry entries associated with an already installed app?

Question

I need to create a package with all files associated with an install, so that I can migrate this install to another computer. I cannot download the installer / setup program, and so I need to do this instead.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thank you!!!! :-D

Answer 1

If you want to know the registry entries and supporting files,you can use procMonitor ..which is actually a monitoring tool.This tool will show you what all files the set up has extracted(with the location),with that you can get all files,And also it shows the registry entries.

Answer 2

Was it installed with windows installer? If so, you can use the windows installer API to open up the cached MSI, and go over the DB. If not, you can use ProcMon while running the program and monitor its file and registry access. Both methods, however, will not guarantee correct function of the program on the target computer.

Answer 3

As On Freund says, you can try to look at the cached MSI, and for that Orca might help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255905

Keep in mind that after the fact is going to be difficult and probably not get you 100% of what you need. For instance, if a dependency existed already on the computer at install time, the files may not have been created.

If you are using Windows XP and want to move to Windows 7, for isntance, this probably isn't going to work either.

Answer 4

I don't know of any tools that could automate teasing an application out of windows lise this. I could probably do it with a great amount of profiling and reverse engineering but it would be quite a challenge.