Changing Motherboard

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Benedictum

What are the issues with XP Home regarding changing motherboard. Will it
invalidate XP? How do I go about reregistration?
 
Changing a Motherboard or Moving a Hard Drive with XP Installed
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

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Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
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| What are the issues with XP Home regarding changing motherboard. Will it
| invalidate XP? How do I go about reregistration?
 
Benedictum said:
What are the issues with XP Home regarding changing motherboard. Will it
invalidate XP? How do I go about reregistration?
Click to expand...

When you install a new motherboard, you will pretty surely need to run
a repair install from your XP installation CD.

If you're running an OEM version of XP, this may not go too well. Many
OEMs (I've heard from eMachines users, and expect that others are
affected as well) consider a motherboard switch to be moving to a new
machine, and won't support it. All support for OEM systems must come
from the OEM, and they may not help you activate their OS on a new
motherboard that you didn't get from them.

If you have a retail version of XP, you should be able to run the
repair install, and re-activate (if necessary) with no problem.
 
Tim said:
When you install a new motherboard, you will pretty surely need to run
a repair install from your XP installation CD.

If you're running an OEM version of XP, this may not go too well. Many
OEMs (I've heard from eMachines users, and expect that others are
affected as well) consider a motherboard switch to be moving to a new
machine, and won't support it. All support for OEM systems must come
from the OEM, and they may not help you activate their OS on a new
motherboard that you didn't get from them.

If you have a retail version of XP, you should be able to run the
repair install, and re-activate (if necessary) with no problem.
Click to expand...

Or if it's a generic OEM.

Alias
 
Benedictum said:
What are the issues with XP Home regarding changing motherboard. Will it
invalidate XP? How do I go about reregistration?
Click to expand...


Normally, and assuming a retail license (many factory-installed OEM
installations are BIOS-locked to a specific chipset and therefore 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

Changing a Motherboard or Moving a Hard Drive with WinXP Installed
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

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.

This will also probably require re-activation, unless you have a
Volume Licensed version of WinXP Pro installed. If it's been more than
120 days since you last activated that specific Product Key, you'll most
likely be able to activate via the Internet without problem. If it's
been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone call.



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Bruce Chambers

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for me, give me liberty, or give me death! -Patrick Henry
 
Benedictum said:
What are the issues with XP Home regarding changing motherboard. Will it
invalidate XP? How do I go about reregistration?
Click to expand...

If you have to call MS, so what. They will give you the info you need to
keep on trucking.
 
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