I downloaded several commercial programs which I purchased directly
from their legitimate vendors thru the internet (I have no program
backup file for them). Will I be able to  mirror those programs into
an external drive in order to reformat the computer hard drive; and
later transfer them back to the computer hard drive an be able to run
them? Or, how can I do it?

My computer crashed earlier this year and I was able to download
further copies of some programs that I wanted from the vendors.

Of course, I could quote the Order Refs, etc.

Worth looking into!

You might consider just backing them up with a standard CD-Recordable.
These stand the test of time and you wouldn't have to worry about
using hard disk space. Good luck!

Programs that you have purchased online as download-only must be saved
permanently onto a storage device.  If the program requires a serial
provided by the software vendor for installation, the serial number
must be saved onto the storage device as well.

Here are your options:

1.  USB Flash Drive or Thumbdrive

These devices are very small in size and plugs right into the USB port
of your computer.  Once plugged in, it is automatically detected and a
new drive will appear on your drives list containing all the files you
have saved into your USB flash drive.

USB flash drives have gotten so cheap that it's a must have for every
person who needs important data saved onto a storage device.  The
range in sizes from 128MB to a few gigabytes.

Once you have one of these drives installed (by plugging it into the
USB port of your computer), save your purchased programs together with
all the necessary information like serial numbers onto it so that your
program will always be accessible on just about any computer with a
USB port.

2.  If your computer is equipped with a CD-Writer, burn a copy of the
program together with the serial number (if applicable) onto a
recordable media, label it and store it for your future needs.

3.  External USB or Firewire Disks

    This would probably be the best option if you can spend around a
hundred dollars.  There are many external USB drives available on the
market.  They vary in size from a few gigabytes to hundreds of
gigabytes.  Save your downloaded program onto one of these external
drives and you'll be able to use it on any computer that is equipped
with a USB port.  The difference between this one and the flash drive
is size.  Flash drives are much smaller while these are available at
100GB or higher.

    If you're tight on budget and still want to go ahead with this
solution, I recommend that you purchase a 3.5" external USB enclosure
and a 3.5" disk drive separately.  The enclosure will cost you between
$20 to $30 and the hard disk will vary in price depending on the size.
 A 200GB Maxtor drive is currently advertised for $70.  If you add the
numbers, for a little less than $100, you can have a 200GB external
USB drive.

    The third solution is highly recommended of all three I mentioned
since it gives you the most savings and the largest disk space.  As
for installation, it's a simple plug into a USB port, power on your
USB drive and another disk drive appears on the drive listing on your
computer.  Install from the USB drive and/or save additional
information onto it.

Cheers!

-- Yushy

If you are asking this because you have installed the program and are
concerned that you do not have a way to re-install them, you can use a
program like AlohaBob to move the installed programs from one computer
to another.

If you bought the programs legitimately, after you get the new
computer up and running, just go to the web sites and redownload the
programs and install. You may have to contact the companies with your
info to get the licenses again. I've done this many times. Next time,
save the program to your hard disk and don't just select RUN &
INSTALL. I created a folder in My Documents called My Downloads. Each
program has a folder in there with a text file with the license
information.

Programs these days are almost always registered with a certain
computer so you would not be able to just transfer it from one to the
other or to an external hard drive. What you can do though, is save
the install program to your external drive. When you download
something, your not downloading the whole program, you get something
called an installer. Think about when you download a program of the
internet and you double click it after its dont. Unless its something
very small that you cant put settings on, it takes you to a setup or
setup wizard where you pick your preferances, where it instal etc..
Some programs automatically delete the installer after the program is
done installing but most dont. Go to the programs directory and try to
find it. It should be something along the linds of "install.exe"
"setup.exe" "install.exe" "program name.exe". If you cant find this
file by just browsing the directory, then it probably got deleted. You
could also try contacting the vendors but you may need to provide very
specific information. Good luck!

I think that You ask about online Storage.
You have 2 kinds, a free and a commercial storage:
Free ones as i know:

1- If you have à Gmail account, you can use: GMail Drive (storage
space of 2000 megabytes).
GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual
filesystem around your Google Gmail account, allowing you to use Gmail
as a storage medium (Please note that GMail Drive is still an
experimental tool).
Installation Requirements: Internet Explorer 5 or better.
Downloads link: http://www.herbsforlife.nl/download/
or : http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/GMail-Drive-shell-extension-Download-15944.html

2- VMN Storage: Free Online Storage!(1 GB of free online storage),
(yous can also get 15Gb of secure online storage for US $9.95 / month
(Or $95.52 / year)). See: http://storage.vmn.net/ma/plans.php

3- 25 GBs of free online file storage:
http://www.mediamax.com/home/signup_files.aspx?CMP=KNC-GoogOnlineStorage

4- http://www.xdrive.com/

Ths commercial solutions are avaliables too:
1- "AceFTP Storage" of "Visicom Media": allows you to store up to 10
gigabytes of data (10Gb -> US $9.95 /month), link
:http://software.visicommedia.com/en/products/aceftpstorage/
2- AMEN Backup: 1 to 50Gb of storage. "Data storage guarantee (IBM
Aspaway servers)" (£3/month) <<IF YOU HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT SOFT TO
STORE USE THIS SOLUTION>>.
Link : http://backup.amenworld.com/
3- See also : ://www.google.com/search?hl=fr&rls=SPDA%2CSPDA%3A2006-40%2CSPDA%3Aen&q=online+storage&lr=

Have a good day

First of all you have the option of disk cloning. You could take an image 
of your disk, and later restore it after the format. This would restore the 
state of your disk completely, and would probably leave the programs running. 
This would not be of use to you though, if you are doing this to do a clean 
install of your OS, ugrade your OS etc.

If disk cloning does not work then you should be doing a new install of the 
programs. Just keeping the program folders will not work. Programs also 
save information on the registry, and many also alter files in your windows
and/or system folders. 

If this is the case, you must keep the files that you downloaded, as well 
as any serial numbers you got when you registered and paid for the programs, 
and do a new install after the format.

This may also be a good time, as cynthia-ga suggested, to go to their web 
sites and get their latest versions to install instead. It depends on their 
policies though, since they may have made the newest versions incompatible 
with old serial numbers.

This, as with all other comments, is general advice. You may also want to 
email the support for each program asking the question for it, and get 
a definitive answer for each one.

You said You Bought all of them. Then that Softwares must have
Registration information in it. If you copy the installed files and
Format your Disk the copied Files may not work with out the registry
information. Some Works but Some Not. So try one thing. Copy the
Installed softwares to a CD then try if it is working in another PC
that do not installed wih it. If works you don't need to get the
installation setup. Otherwise its not possible to run them. you can
also request the Software owners For those softs with your address
information or Payment info.
Hopes this helps

Hi,

Install all programs on the desktop and create disk image via Symantec
Ghost software. This is one time effort and will save all of your
programs and files as it is once restored back to the same machine or
different one.

Best of luck

If I understand correctly I highly recommend you use
http://www.laplink.com/pcmover/ or at minimum get an account with
https://mozy.com/?ref=CHAFY5.  Better yet, do both.

wht you can do is: 
- if you have a usb device that has enough memory that you can put
those programs into the usb.
- go to that program right click, then go copy this program to the E:drive
- after that go check the E:drive (usb) if the program is coppied