badgolferman said:
At work we have a computer with a AMD Duron 800 Mhz based Gigabyte
motherboard in a computer. It has WinXP Corporate Edition operating
system which does not require activation.
I want to change the motherboard with an Intel Pentium 4 based Abit
motherboard. Is there a way to do this without wiping the drive clean
and not causing blue screen conflicts? I know this was a problem with
W2K systems, but am hoping someone has discovered a way around it by
now.
Normally, and assuming a retail license (many OEM installations
and licenses are not transferable to a new motherboard - check yours
before starting), unless the new motherboard is virtually identical
(same chipset, same IDE controllers, same BIOS version, etc.) to the
one on which the WinXP installation was originally performed, you'll
need to perform a repair (a.k.a. in-place upgrade) installation, at
the very least:
How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341
The "why" is quite simple, really, and has nothing to do with
licensing issues, per se; it's a purely technical matter, at this
point. You've pulled the proverbial hardware rug out from under the
OS. (If you don't like -- or get -- the rug analogy, think of it as
picking up a Cape Cod style home and then setting it down onto a Ranch
style foundation. It just isn't going to fit.) WinXP, like Win2K
before it, is not nearly as "promiscuous" as Win9x when it comes to
accepting any old hardware configuration you throw at it. On
installation it "tailors" itself to the specific hardware found. This
is one of the reasons that the entire WinNT/2K/XP OS family is so much
more stable than the Win9x group.
As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
