[nippywiffle]

Hi,
I had my iphone all set up, and syncing with itunes. I recently formatted my HDD, to get rid of Windows 7 RC, and install the final release.

I reinstalled iTunes, and obviously it was empty. I have a backup copy of my entire hard disk, so I have all the itunes library files etc, everything from my profile, my documents, my music, and program files.

I manually reimported all my music to itunes... using the xml file (which took forever...)... it seemed kind of pointless, I could have just pointed it at my music folder, and had it create a new library from there.

Anyway, I synched my iphone, and it proceeded to wipe all music off my iphone, and then re-copy everything again from itunes. That's fine, it's done.. but it seems a little backwards that it can't just check for the file on the iphone, and only copy what's necessary.

So, now I have the same thing with apps. I copied all the app files back to itunes, and enabled "sync apps", but it's showing them all in a different order on the screens... I don't wanna sync, and then have to rearrange all 10 pages of apps.

SO, my question is... is there ANY way to get itunes back as it was before I formatted, so that everything is identical? I have every file backed up... I thought I'd copied them all to the right places, but itunes seems to ignore them.

OR, is there a way to force my iphone to sync all it's current apps TO itunes, rather than the other way round? That must have happened the first time I ever synched my iphone... why can't it happen now?

Thanks for your help.
Dan

[nippywiffle]

Never mind... I found the solution.

You right click on your iphone, in the iTunes window, and choose "Transfer purchases" - this copies all the apps on your iphone, to your PC/iTunes.

So easy, and yet so difficult to find for some reason... I read hundreds of posts online of people who were so happy to find the solution on the site I found it at.