Backing Up and reinstalling Win. Updates after a reinstalation of WinXP.

I fear I might have to do a full reinstall of WinXP SP2 on my Dell laptop.
Does anyone know if its possible to backup all the updates I can see in the
Windows folder and then restall them after i've reinstalled Windows. It
would save having to do the tedious task of downloading them all again.

Thanks in advance.

Graham wrote:
> I fear I might have to do a full reinstall of WinXP SP2 on my Dell
> laptop. Does anyone know if its possible to backup all the updates
> I can see in the Windows folder and then restall them after i've
> reinstalled Windows. It would save having to do the tedious task of
> downloading them all again.

Unless you downloaded them and saved the actual installation files elsewhere
when you installed them (did not use Automatic Updates) - then you will need
to download them.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Agreed. IF the 'backups' you see in the Windows folder look like this
$NtUninstallKB933566$, then those are the UNinstallation folders for the
updates, not the updates themselves. Those folders can be deleted and
the reference to them in Add/Remove Programs along with them:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/spack.htm
DO NOT delete ANYTHING in the $hf_mig$ folder !!!
Those files are needed for subsequent updates to files contained in
$hf_mig$.

MowGreen [MVP 2003-2007]
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============


Shenan Stanley wrote:

> Graham wrote:
>
>>I fear I might have to do a full reinstall of WinXP SP2 on my Dell
>>laptop. Does anyone know if its possible to backup all the updates
>>I can see in the Windows folder and then restall them after i've
>>reinstalled Windows. It would save having to do the tedious task of
>>downloading them all again.
>
>
> Unless you downloaded them and saved the actual installation files elsewhere
> when you installed them (did not use Automatic Updates) - then you will need
> to download them.
>