Motherboard Upgrade and XP SP1a

[Dan]

I have heard it a million times that I will have to do a
reinstall if i upgrade the motherboard. What I want to
know, is are there any ways around it for a computer in a
enterprise environment? Where the installation is using a
Volume Key which de-activates the activation process, as
is expected in these environments. I recall utilizing
safe mode with 95/98 and 2000 to eliminate the wrong
drivers from loading, and having the new drivers
available on the hard drive for the OS to load when the
new hardware is found. Thanks in advance for any input.


Dan

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

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

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

[Courtesy of MS-MVP Michael Stevens]

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


|I have heard it a million times that I will have to do a
| reinstall if i upgrade the motherboard. What I want to
| know, is are there any ways around it for a computer in a
| enterprise environment? Where the installation is using a
| Volume Key which de-activates the activation process, as
| is expected in these environments. I recall utilizing
| safe mode with 95/98 and 2000 to eliminate the wrong
| drivers from loading, and having the new drivers
| available on the hard drive for the OS to load when the
| new hardware is found. Thanks in advance for any input.
|
|
| Dan

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

No, there's no way around it, and comparing WinXP to Win98 is an
exercise in futility. (Win2K is no more forgiving of hardware changes
than is WinXP, so that portion of your comparison is plainly invalid.)
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 primary reasons WinXP, again like Win2K
before it, is so much more stable than is Win9x.

Normally, and assuming a retail license (many OEM licenses are not
transferable to a new motherboard), unless your motherboard is
virtually identical (same chipset, same IDE controllers, same BIOS
version, etc.) to the one on which the other 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

As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.



Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



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having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Peter Hutchison]

I have heard it a million times that I will have to do a
reinstall if i upgrade the motherboard. What I want to
know, is are there any ways around it for a computer in a
enterprise environment? Where the installation is using a
Volume Key which de-activates the activation process, as
is expected in these environments. I recall utilizing
safe mode with 95/98 and 2000 to eliminate the wrong
drivers from loading, and having the new drivers
available on the hard drive for the OS to load when the
new hardware is found. Thanks in advance for any input.

No you do Not NEED to do a reinstall.

You need to use SYSPREP utility which comes will XP so that it
prepares XP for distribution (using images) to different hardware.
What Sysprep does is removed the hardware specific drivers from the
install PC, and when copied to another PC, it will go through a
partial setup to detect and install the correct drivers for the
hardware. See Deploy.msi file.

Its much better than some eariler OSs which did not have this facility
and had to use work arounds to install correct drivers.

We use this a lot at work, we use Drive Image of a Sysprepped Windows
XP Pro image to install onto different makes of Desktop and Laptop
images.
Note, that older PCs which do not support ACPI, you need to have a
seperate image that does not have the ACPI drivers (use APM instead).

Peter Hutchison
Windows FAQ
http://www.pcguru.plus.com/