Under XP Professional NT backup

[delmore]

I use the NT backup under XP Professional -- the backup that comes standard with XP pro, to backup my entire hard drive with the system state checked off. If I restore the backup, will the programs -- MS Outlook 2002, photoshop, etc be restored as well? In other words, I don't want to reinstall all the applications if the HD crashes.

I say only the data and registry keys will be restored, my friend says the full system will be restored, similar to cloning with Norton Ghost, and the applictions do not have to be reinstalled.

I'd use the ghost, but like doing the incremental back ups with a script.

Who's correct?

Thanks!

[Joshua]

If you do a full backup with System State checked, then you would be able to restore your entire drive to its current state including applications.

The only catch is that you'd have to reinstall windows first in order to use xp backup to restore it. :D