How to restore everything to a new machine

[LeMarque]

Hi.

My HP xw4300 is running xppro sp3 and I plan on staying with the OS. My
primary drive is a 160gb wd1600ys and I need to restore to an HP xw4600 that
has a 250gb drive. Since I have about 60gb of program files and data was
wondering if anyone can suggest an easy (?) way to move everything to the
4600 other than reloading every MS and Adobe app plus.

Any suggestions appreciated.

 

[DL]

You are unlikely to be able to do that as you will be running an OEM copy of
winxp. This is licensed to the first PC it is installed on.
If you had a retail version of winxp, you would need to run a repair
installation on the new PC.
I suspect your HP came with recovery disks so you wont have this option

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

You are unlikely to be able to do that as you will be running an OEM copy of
winxp. This is licensed to the first PC it is installed on.

Yes, but not only is there a licensing issue, there is also a
potential incompatibility issue. Most brand-name OEM copies are
BIOS-locked to the original motherboard, and will work only on that
one or an identical one. I don't know anything about the two HP models
he mentions, but unless the motherboards are identical, it is very
likely that there's no way he can do what he wants.

 

[LeMarque]

Thanks, but - ARRGGHH!!!

Gotta flame here for a minute.

I wiped Vista minutes after I loaded it. From a tech point of view, what a
piece of junk. I realize there's a gamer, video/pic market that demands
product, but for cryin' out loud. Can't MS take sooome of it's capital (both
financial and brains) and stop trying to protect me from phishing and develop
a TRUE upgrade/migration tool? The *#!?# registry is meant more for homeland
insecurity than it is for the end user.

Flame off...

 

[DL]

Assuming Vista was supplied preinstalled by HP, depending on version, you
might want to check with HP as to whether it has downgrade rights to winxp.