How Do I Restore Notepad++ On a New PC?

Claudia Frank

what do you mean by %APPDATA%\Notepad++ doesn’t exists?
Doesn’t exists on the new hdd? On the old hdd? Nor neither?
Did you install npp using %APPDATA% configuration?

If your previous installation disk is mounted to the new operating system
you need to look for the path which was something like

YOUR_OLD_DISK_LETTER:\Users\YOUR_OLD_USER_NAME\AppData\

and then look within the backup directory
Cheers
Claudia

Frank Gore

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++ is not on the old hard drive at all. It’s on the new hard drive, but I can’t find it on the old one.

I’ve been running Notepad++ for many, many years on Windows 7 which was upgraded to Windows 10 earlier this year, and only updating occasionally. I always installed Notepad++ updates using the default settings. Is it possible that the directory is elsewhere since I started on a much older version?

Claudia Frank

@Frank-Gore

if you always used the installer then it might be that the backup directory is located under the
notepad++ installation directory. You could also run a search for a directory called backup
on the old hdd. Good luck.

Cheers
Claudia

Frank Gore

I don’t get this… all I can find of Notepad++ on the old hard disk is the Start Menu folder (which appears to be empty) and a PreFetch file in the x:\Windows\PreFetch directory. This makes no sense at all. There’s nothing in either of the Program Files directories. How can all trace of it have vanished overnight?

I’m browsing the contents of the disk using Ubuntu because Windows absolutely refuses to open up that partition. I’m using the command line “find” utility to search the entire partition.

I’m so confused. Where could Notepad++ have disappeared to?

Claudia Frank

@Frank-Gore

maybe let’s go back two steps.
Do you run a live cd with ubuntu accessing the old windows installation?
Did you put old hdd into new pc having linux/window installed together?
Did you try gparted?
If Windows refuses to open that partition didn’t you get any error?

Cheers
Claudia

Frank Gore

I’m running Ubuntu from a live CD on the old computer that “died”. Its configuration hasn’t changed since I stopped trying to revive it. I never figured out what happened to the old computer, Windows just crashed one day and forced a reboot, then refused to start again, and all attempts to repair it failed (both through built-in tools and recovery media). It wouldn’t even tell me why it “failed”, just that there was an error and it needed to reboot. The only thing I haven’t tried is re-installing Windows from scratch because I didn’t want to lose the existing data on the drive. There were other hardware issues already (bad video card, for one), so I just gave up and took the opportunity to have one of my employers buy me a whole new system.

I tried putting the old SSD on the new system to browse it and recover the files, but all Windows told me was “Unable to open”. There was no more specific error message, and I didn’t check any error log for more info. I tried changing file permissions, but that didn’t help. Finally I put the SSD back into the old system and put in a live CD to browse the file system. I have access to “everything” (which essentially means “everything I can remember”), but apparently Notepad++ has vanished. Makes me wonder what else may have vanished too… it’s too bizarre that only Notepad++ is magically gone. I use it every single day.

Claudia Frank

@Frank-Gore

what about opening the registry using wine (I’m not sure if it is part of the livecd)
and looking where notepad was installed?

Cheers
Claudia

Frank Gore

Wherever it was installed, the binary should still be called notepad++.exe. I should be able to find that by searching. It’s simply gone… I’m perplexed.

Claudia Frank

In theory, yes, but what if you did use an improper command?
Btw. Which command did you use . I mean the whole find command.

Cheers
Claudia

Frank Gore

find /media/ubuntu/WIN10 -iname “notepad++”

(find all instances of notepad++ regardless of case within the directory tree starting at WIN10)

As I mentioned above, the only results I get are the empty Start Menu directory and some prefetch file, nothing else.

I just checked the old registry and there’s still an entry in there for Notepad++ in the Program Files directory, so that’s definitely where it should be. It just no longer exists. That’s some seriously selective file vanishing… I think I’ll have to admit defeat and accept that those tabs are lost forever :(

Claudia Frank

Doesn’t look promising. The last thing which comes into my mind is to use data recovery tools/cd.
But I assume you already tried that as well, didn’t you?

Cheers
Claudia