Windows appdata and registry questions

[h1533992]

When moving a (installed) program or game to a new pc it won't work because it's missing something.

If I would copy the registry and the appdata folder also, would the program/game work? As far as I understand all settings in windows are either in the registry or in the appdata folder.

I'm not planning on doing this but I just wonder if it's possible.

Another question: why is most software so much "attached" to windows to begin with? Is it not always possible or wanted to make software portable?

 

[hang-the-9]

No, it's likely not to work. There may be other places it puts files in (system, system32, user directories) and in many cases it registers .dll files during setup. Some programs work, some don't.

It's possible to make a program work within itself, but most programs are not written that way to take advantage of built-in Windows files that they may use. There are some "portable" programs that run in their own directly off thumbdrives and such. Utilities like imaging programs, anti-virus scanners, things like that. Some file readers are portable so you can distribute them with files. I know there is a radiology program that is used for reading files from MRI and XRAY machines that runs off a disk without being installed. So it's possible just not often done.