pc upgrade, use old software

[Bazzz]

Hey guys,

 

I recently built a new pc for my boss, on which he primarily used microsoft office, photoshop 12 and windows live mail.

I built a new pc and put the old hdd where all of his files + his old windows 10 were installed.

After succesfully booting to the clean windows, I could get to his old files, but except for his steam games nothing worked.

 

He does have his old photoshop key, but not for office. windows is still installed on his old hdd too.

Is there a way for me to get his software back? I can easily install photoshop, but especially windows live mail is a problem since it isn't even supported by microsoft anymore.

 

Any help? 

[userzero]

You need to run something like Recoverkeys or Produkey on the drive containing the old software. If you manage to recover the serials etc then make a note of them and try to find installation media to install the program correctly. If the serial reports it has been used too many times then you speak to the software vendor and ask if it can be reset for you.

[JacobFW]

On 4/20/2018 at 8:09 AM, Bazzz said:

Hey guys,

 

I recently built a new pc for my boss, on which he primarily used microsoft office, photoshop 12 and windows live mail.

I built a new pc and put the old hdd where all of his files + his old windows 10 were installed.

After succesfully booting to the clean windows, I could get to his old files, but except for his steam games nothing worked.

 

He does have his old photoshop key, but not for office. windows is still installed on his old hdd too.

Is there a way for me to get his software back? I can easily install photoshop, but especially windows live mail is a problem since it isn't even supported by microsoft anymore.

 

Any help? 

I'll second userzero's suggestion, to get a backup of the keys.

Many of the settings the programs use are tied to the original OS it was installed on, so just trying having the old OS drive attached as a secondary drive won't let you use the programs.

 

If you have a spare hard drive around, I would suggest taking the old hard drive with your boss' programs on it (Drive A), and cloning it to the spare hard drive (Drive B), then disconnect all drives but Drive B and boot it up off of their.  I've done that quite a few times in my office and have found existing Windows 10 installations to work fairly well on new machines.  Not always, but it's definitely worth a shot.