Need help with restoring computer from backup

Hi

Three days ago my,2012 HP Windows 7 Laptop starting acting up doing the ghost thing on certain programs(Microsoft office 2010 Excel). It would allow me to open the program but then would say not responding.

After a few attempts on restarting the computer, I gave up and fully backed up the HP Laptop & restored the computer to factory settings.After three more attempts the computer seems stable now and loaded everything from my backup again.

I never did the recovery disc when I bought the machine 6 months ago,also have never done a system restore from external hard-drive either.

I'm very angry after the restore because my files/programs aren't in the factory locations. Does anyone make a program to reinstall all my programs with serial numbers(Photoshop) or my I-tunes library etc.

How have other members made this process easy with getting all the files back into there locations and finding serial numbers.

Also, after everything is fixed do I delete the backup from my external HD?? Everything has been copied into my laptop again right?

I'm just a Newbie computer person looking for some help please

thanks