Need to move XP Pro to new machine - old one died

  • Thread starter Thread starter James Rankin
  • Start date Start date
J

James Rankin

Hi,

I'm looking for any and all information that I need to know in order to move
my xp pro to a new machine.

I recently installed xp pro on my home machine, which was a PIII 800Mhz.
That machine died this past weekend. XP was installed on a 120 GB drive.

I have purchased a new PIV, 2.8Mhz machine, that comes installed (but not
activated) with xp home.

My current plan is to take my hard drive from the old machine (which I hope
is still working) and move it to the new machine. Then I plan on following
the instructions at http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

Does anyone out there have any advice on alternatives, or things to watch
out for?

Since the new PC also comes with a 120GB drive I'd like to make that the
second drive in the new machine. Any problems with that approach?

Thanks for the help,

James Rankin
(e-mail address removed)
 
James Rankin said:
Hi,

I'm looking for any and all information that I need to know in order to move
my xp pro to a new machine.

I recently installed xp pro on my home machine, which was a PIII 800Mhz.
That machine died this past weekend. XP was installed on a 120 GB drive.

I have purchased a new PIV, 2.8Mhz machine, that comes installed (but not
activated) with xp home.

My current plan is to take my hard drive from the old machine (which I hope
is still working) and move it to the new machine. Then I plan on following
the instructions at http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

Does anyone out there have any advice on alternatives, or things to watch
out for?

Since the new PC also comes with a 120GB drive I'd like to make that the
second drive in the new machine. Any problems with that approach?
Click to expand...

A couple of possible licensing related concerns.

1. If your XP Pro is an OEM version then that license is permanently
tied to the first machine that it was installed on and when that
machine dies the license dies with it. OEM licenses are not
transferrable to another computer under any circumstances. However
if it is a retail (upgrade or full install) version of XP Pro then the
license may be transferred from one computer to another provided it is
only ever installed on a single computer at any given moment in time.

2. Your OEM XP Home license that came with the new machine may or may
not be usable on another machine. It depends on the precise meaning
of "installed" as compared to "partially installed". If, for example,
your supplier uses the generic OEM versions from Microsoft and if they
used the OEM Preinstall procedure to load the files onto the machine
then the install will not be completed until you the first time you
start up the computer and boot from that hard drive so as to complete
the install process.

In that scenario if you never boot the new machine from the
preinstalled XP Home the install will never be completed and the
license has technically not been installed on that computer. It could
therefore be legitimately used on another computer. However if you
have booted it up with XP Home even once, even if you bypassed the
activation part, then the install has been completed and the license
is now locked to that machine.

Additionally if the XP Home is not the generic Microsoft OEM version
then it may be a "BIOS Locked" version that would not be usable on
another computer anyway.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
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