Querying MOffice behaviour when installing.

Question

Updated PC with new C Drive for friend. Transferred old C with no data loss at time. Operating as slave drive but all still on there.

Installed Office Pro on new C but I am concerned that some files might have gon missing as there's about 200GB of data that seems to have vanished.

I can't imagine that Office would delete old data but I did input key in process of DL'ing install exe for Office suite.

Some reassurance would be good. I can access some E (old C) files but I am a bit worried that somethings gone amiss.

Stupidly forgot to set Restore points, done now, but DL'd Windows File Recovery just in case. Can I use that to see if anything has been wiped from the E?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Please provide some more detail on this, what method did you use to transfer the data from the old drive to the new drive, did you use some cloning utility to copy all partitions from the old drive to the new drive or just manually copy the data from the old drive to the new drive in File Explorer.

Answer 2

Installing Office does not custom-delete files from another drive based on the provided guidance. Office installs all included apps together, and it installs only to the system drive where Windows is installed, usually C:. The documented behavior does not indicate that installing Office removes data from a separate old drive such as E:.

For the missing 200 GB, the supported next step is to verify whether the files are still present but harder to find:

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Select This PC.
3. In Search This PC, search for known missing file names.
4. Also search by file type, for example:
   • *.doc
   • *.mp3
5. If a file is found, right-click it and select Open file location.
6. If needed, copy or move the files to a safer location.

If search is not finding files:

1. Open Settings.
2. Turn on showing hidden and system files:
   • On current Windows guidance: System > Advanced > File Explorer > Show hidden and system files = On.
3. Run the Search troubleshooter:
   • Settings > Privacy & security > Search > Advanced indexing options
   • Select Advanced
   • Select Troubleshoot search and indexing

If the files had previously been backed up, they can be restored from Backup and restore (Windows 7). If they were stored in OneDrive, recovery from OneDrive is also noted.

About using Windows File Recovery to check whether files were wiped from E:: no supported guidance for that tool is included here, so no steps can be provided for it.

One additional caution from the available guidance: manually trying to restore old program registry entries from the previous Windows installation is described as risky and not a reliable way to recover applications or their listings.

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References:

• Can I custom install Office apps?
• Find lost files after upgrading Windows
• Accessing old Registries for programs from a prior drive to place into a new installation of Windows - Microsoft Q&A