Upgrading

[JohnK]

HI, First post, go easy!

I have a small HTPC set up, based on an Asrock 775-Twins mobo, which is ATI XPress 200 chipset. It's running WinXP SP2. I want to upgrade so I've bought an E2140 to overclock and a new mobo, the Asrock Wolfdale 133-GLAN/M which is an Intel 945GC A2 chipset. As you can tell, I like these cheap Asrock boards!

Question is, what chance do I have of swapping out the boards and then installing drivers without having to reinstall Windows. I did this once before, years ago, and ended up with a pretty unstable system, but perhaps there are tips for making it work. I don't want to reinstall as I have all my apps, codecs etc jsut how I want them.

Thanks,

John

[Rishi]

Is this because your Windows is OEM?

Personally I would always re-install Windows, it will save much time in the long run and ensure a smooth, clean and quick system.

[staffsMike]

You can do a repair of windows which keeps everything in tact but changes the drivers for you hardware etc..

[Thorsson]

Possible to upgrade XP without a clean install as staffsMike says, and it certainly can be stable. With an OEM you will have to probably ring M$ to get it activated.

[JohnK]

No, it's corporate copy, we're allowed to have a copy for home use under the terms of our license. I just don't want to have to do all the installing and tweaking, I did all that fairly recently.

What's the procedure for doing the repair method? Do you boot the CD and run repair before booting off the hard disk, or do you boot up and see how it goes then mop up with the CD?

Thx,

John

[pepsi_max2k]

Swapping your board without so much as a reinstall (243kB of images, updated Jun '06) - Topic Powered by eve community

/\ should help you out a lot.

[JohnK]

/\ should help you out a lot.

That's fantastic, thankyou (can't find the Thank button!).