New Computer

[Guest]

I am considering buy a bareback computer from Tiger Direct. It comes with
everything but hard disks. I have Windows XP Home Edition on my old
computer. I would move the hard disk that is now C: drive to the new
bareback. Would I have to and can I reinstall Windows XP on the new computer?

 

[Malke]

I am considering buy a bareback computer from Tiger Direct. It comes with
everything but hard disks. I have Windows XP Home Edition on my old
computer. I would move the hard disk that is now C: drive to the new
bareback. Would I have to and can I reinstall Windows XP on the new computer?

At the very least you would need to do a Repair Install. At most, you'd
need to do a Clean Install.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
How-To

http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows -
What you will need on-hand

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html - for changing motherboard


Malke

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I am considering buy a bareback computer from Tiger Direct. It comes
with everything but hard disks. I have Windows XP Home Edition on my
old computer. I would move the hard disk that is now C: drive to the
new bareback. Would I have to and can I reinstall Windows XP on the
new computer?

If yours is an OEM copy of WIndows (for example, if it came with the
computer), its license ties it permanently to the first computer it's
installed on and you may *not* do this.

But if it's a retail version, no problem. Try a repair installation (see
"How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install"
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm). That usually works,
but occcasionally it's not good enough and you have to do a clean
installation. So make sure you do a backup of anythng you can't afford to
lose first.

 

[Guest]

If yours is an OEM copy of WIndows (for example, if it came with the
computer), its license ties it permanently to the first computer it's
installed on and you may *not* do this.

But if it's a retail version, no problem. Try a repair installation (see
"How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install"
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm). That usually works,
but occcasionally it's not good enough and you have to do a clean
installation. So make sure you do a backup of anythng you can't afford to
lose first.

Thank you! I bought the Windows upgrade to go from ME. I think I
understand the reply. My present computer is several years old and is
beginning to hang up and shut off and do strange things. It has been on
almost every day for five years for at least five or six hours, and rather
than try to trouble shoot it, (AMD 2800 GHZ) I thought it would be easier to
buy a bareback duel corp and transfer the hard disks. I'm not ready for
Vista yet, as XP works pretty well for me. Thanks for the info!

 

[Rock]

"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

Thank you! I bought the Windows upgrade to go from ME. I think I
understand the reply. My present computer is several years old and is
beginning to hang up and shut off and do strange things. It has been on
almost every day for five years for at least five or six hours, and rather
than try to trouble shoot it, (AMD 2800 GHZ) I thought it would be easier
to
buy a bareback duel corp and transfer the hard disks. I'm not ready for
Vista yet, as XP works pretty well for me. Thanks for the info!

An upgrade version is a retail version so yes, per the license, it can be
moved to the new computer. You'll need to do at the minimum a repair
install, but if the differences in hardware between the two systems are
significant, that may not work and you'll need to do a clean install. Make
sure you backup the important data before moving it to the new computer just
in case (of course one should always have full and complete backup). Ken
gave you the link on how to do a repair install.