Back up programs on pc?

[scrappyethel]

I have been reading on here that backing up your photos is essential, which right now I use External hard drive, and also burn to CD.

My question is, I have a CS2 version of Photoshop that I have on my laptop but have lost the CD and if the PS ever quits working, I will have to repurchase, which is not cheap.

Is there a way to manually back up the program itself? Is that covered and backed up if I do back up for my Windows XP backup regularly?

Thanks!

[Murtasma]

The installation program creates tons of registry entries and places files all over the system, registers dlls and creates GUIDS on the system. It's not as simple as copying C:\program files\adobe\photoshop cs2. You won't be able to backup Adobe Photoshop unless you backup your entire PC including the registry.

Adobe places files in c:\windows\system32 c:\program files\common files\adobe and probably a few other places within the windows directory.

[morts]

Originally Posted by Murtasma

The installation program creates tons of registry entries and places files all over the system, registers dlls and creates GUIDS on the system. It's not as simple as copying C:\program files\adobe\photoshop cs2. You won't be able to backup Adobe Photoshop unless you backup your entire PC including the registry.

Adobe places files in c:\windows\system32 c:\program files\common files\adobe and probably a few other places within the windows directory.

DO you still have the license key?

Adobe do a license recovery app (google for it) which will strip your current (broken) license and reactivate fresh. Other than that, PS should reinstate its essential registry entries when you run it.

Failing that, if you IMAGE your hard disk instead of copying the files to a USB drive or something, then everything gets restored byte for byte, down to registry keys and the like.

Click the "keeping your data safe" link in my sig for more info.