Windows 10: Recovering programs from windows.old

Ok so first off a bit of background...

Out of nowhere (Pretty sure it was a driver issue... didn't finish installing and I powered my pc off fully before realizing that it was still downloading) it bluescreened and went into some infinite bsod loop. I ended up fixing that and keeping all my files with my programs in windows.old... Now however, I transferred my 'desired programs' from my program files and other places back over and they aren't being discovered by my pc. I can open and use them, however windows doesn't really accept them as being there... I tried setting chrome back as my default browser and it is just gone. It doesn't pop up. The programs list (control panel>Programs>Programs and features) doesn't show any of the programs... I'm not really sure what to do, I've done everything I can think of which to be honest isn't much. Any help would be appreciated (even if that means just being told I have to reinstall everything... although I'd like to keep my 400gb collection of programs haha)

:)

 

Why did the startup window get cleared?

I didn't missed any step, the list was gone and gone , even after using lot of programs the programs were not listed in that list.

 

Need some help. Old HDD. New laptop.

Yes, that would be a favorable solution if possible. But it requires what I said as a first step. Once he gets booted into the OS, then he can either use it as is or try to recover the product key. I'm not saying he couldn't do what you said, I was replying to another post that suggested simply copy/pasting documents from the old hard drive.

 

Recover or Reformat?

Norton Ghost?

I am sorry.. I have no idea what that is.. I am pretty green I'm afraid.

I wasn't trying to recover any files.. I wanted to format a new drive in an old computer.. The old drive died.

I did what Namslas90 said but then when I got to the next step .. and hit enter.. nothing happened.. sigh...

Anyway.. I am waiting on the next step.. Thank you for your input ...