Upgrade mobo without reinstalling all programs?

"TVeblen" wrote in message
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"geronimo" wrote in message
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I have Windows XP Pro Corp. Windows runs on a 500gb SATA drive. I
want to upgrade from an Asrock Athlon 64 X2 mobo I got a year ago to a
Asus M3N mobo of some flavor or another. Or the Foxconn A795A looks
good, and has very favorable buyer reviews on Newegg. But I have
spend so much time installing just about every Windows program known
to man, I am weighing the risk of it no longer running Windows without
reinstall of the OS and everything else. . I have built a number of
systems, but never tried upgrading mobo without installing fresh OS.
Will I be OK if, prior to shut-down for the last time, I go into
device manager and delete SYSTEM DEVICES and anything else related to
on-board devices? THis would make Windows default back to the generic
hardware device drivers, right?

You can do a repair install of XP without any major problems. I have done
so twice. I have one XP machine that has been running without issue on a
motherboard change/repair install for 3 years now. I have not tried
removing the motherboard related devices beforehand, I don't know if that
is even possible. But before the repair install you need to write down all
the info from Device Manager on the old hardware, then after the repair
install with the XP CD you need to go into Device Manager again, check the
box to see "Hidden Devices", and remove any phantom devices you find
there, referring to your list to make sure the devices are the old ones.
XP will run now without any major problems (minor curiosities will arise,
but only if you are obsessive about OS minutia, not blue screen
catastrophes.) Worst case is you wasted 2 hours doing the repair install
and now you must spend the 40 hours or whatever on a clean install. Not a
bad gamble.


This is essentially how I do it with XP and have never had a problem yet. I
also like to have the service pack and have it ready to add immediately.

I did same before with XP Pro installed, and on many computer, some that
belong to other people, and alot on mines (I had 4 at one time), and it did
work the same, actually I was a lot more scepticle about Vista being able to
handle this than XP, but it worked fine

"SteveH" wrote in message
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Martin Racette wrote:
I run mine 24/7, and I did many such change and never had any
problem, and if you look up I just posted a new change that I did
about a month ago, and I still don't have any problem and the latest
such change is the 3rd with that same Vista installation

Some people do experience bad luck when doing that kind of change,
but in my experience works very well most of the time

Except we're talking about XP..

SteveH


--
Thank You in Advance
Merci a l'avance

Martin

TVeblen wrote:

Worst case is
you wasted 2 hours doing the repair install and now you must spend the 40
hours or whatever on a clean install.

Why would it take 40 hours to do a clean install?

"ToolPackinMama" wrote in message
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TVeblen wrote:

Worst case is
you wasted 2 hours doing the repair install and now you must spend the 40
hours or whatever on a clean install.

Why would it take 40 hours to do a clean install?

Installing XP only takes 20-30mins... The other 39+ hours are spend
downloading and installing service packs, windows updates, applications,
service packs for applications etc etc etc

Rarius

"Rarius" wrote in message
...
"ToolPackinMama" wrote in message
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TVeblen wrote:

Worst case is
you wasted 2 hours doing the repair install and now you must spend the
40 hours or whatever on a clean install.

Why would it take 40 hours to do a clean install?

Installing XP only takes 20-30mins... The other 39+ hours are spend
downloading and installing service packs, windows updates, applications,
service packs for applications etc etc etc

Rarius


Exactly. Everyone always asks this. It actually doesn't take much time at
all to install the apps either, it the configuration of those apps and XP to
get them back to where they were before that takes the hours. AutoCAD is the
worst for me. It took me 4 hours to install, activate, set file paths,
reinstall user blocks and templates , and get all the program settings back
to where I had them. And then the next 6 times I used the program I ran into
something I had changed but had forgotten about.

On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:57:52 -0000, "Rarius" wrote:

"ToolPackinMama" wrote in message
...
TVeblen wrote:

Worst case is
you wasted 2 hours doing the repair install and now you must spend the 40
hours or whatever on a clean install.

Why would it take 40 hours to do a clean install?

Installing XP only takes 20-30mins... The other 39+ hours are spend
downloading and installing service packs, windows updates, applications,
service packs for applications etc etc etc

Rarius

You mean 39 minutes, right? I mean, you did save backups of the stuff you
had installed. Because you're not one of those total idiots who doesn't
believe in backups!
--
Michael Cecil
http://home.roadrunner.com/~macecil/
http://home.roadrunner.com/~safehex/
http://home.roadrunner.com/~macecil/hackingw7/

"Michael Cecil" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:57:52 -0000, "Rarius" wrote:

"ToolPackinMama" wrote in message
...
TVeblen wrote:

Worst case is
you wasted 2 hours doing the repair install and now you must spend the
40
hours or whatever on a clean install.

Why would it take 40 hours to do a clean install?

Installing XP only takes 20-30mins... The other 39+ hours are spend
downloading and installing service packs, windows updates, applications,
service packs for applications etc etc etc

Rarius

You mean 39 minutes, right? I mean, you did save backups of the stuff you
had installed. Because you're not one of those total idiots who doesn't
believe in backups!
--
Michael Cecil

You are talking about user files. Different subject.

On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:17:29 -0400, "TVeblen"
wrote:


"Michael Cecil" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:57:52 -0000, "Rarius" wrote:

"ToolPackinMama" wrote in message
...
TVeblen wrote:

Worst case is
you wasted 2 hours doing the repair install and now you must spend the
40
hours or whatever on a clean install.

Why would it take 40 hours to do a clean install?

Installing XP only takes 20-30mins... The other 39+ hours are spend
downloading and installing service packs, windows updates, applications,
service packs for applications etc etc etc

Rarius

You mean 39 minutes, right? I mean, you did save backups of the stuff you
had installed. Because you're not one of those total idiots who doesn't
believe in backups!
--
Michael Cecil

You are talking about user files. Different subject.

No I'm talking about "service packs, windows updates, applications,
service packs for applications". Otherwise I wouldn't have quoted that
text.
--
Michael Cecil
http://home.roadrunner.com/~macecil/
http://home.roadrunner.com/~safehex/
http://home.roadrunner.com/~macecil/hackingw7/

"ToolPackinMama" wrote in message
...
TVeblen wrote:

Worst case is
you wasted 2 hours doing the repair install and now you must spend the 40
hours or whatever on a clean install.

Why would it take 40 hours to do a clean install?


It isn't the install that takes the time... it's the reinstall of all of the
apps. This might not be an issue if all you need is Office, an AV and a
Spybot... maybe reinstall just the latest game or two that you play.
However...

I do some graphics work and have some 38 program groups just in my plug-ins
folder alone, grouping hundreds of plug-in apps. Of those 38 groups, maybe
only half of those apps install as a package... the rest install one by one
making for maybe a hundred installations... *and* ... of those maybe half
are not something I have files for as they download and install from a
site... *and* ... of those maybe half have been 'improved' since I got them
in a manner I do not see as improved. With a broadband connection it may not
take a full 40 hours but then again it might. At the least it would take
every free hour of every evening for a week or week and a half. Just one
wild card would be the fact that many of these companies or individuals who
write this plug-ins are not established as any name that resembles the name
of the plug-in, so I'm sure there would be some significant googletime
involved on top of the replacement time.

MS could make this process seamless if they applied any real time to it, I
feel sure of that. They do not because they want us to buy all new apps when
we buy a new machine or build one... in fact... they want us to buy not
build and they want us to buy from their corporate partners where those apps
are loaded from one simple disk by a kid making 25cents an hour. I believe
that, especially in this economy, they are missing the boat on that. Heck...
for that matter they don't want any company but MS writing graphics programs
and they certainly don't want individuals writing plug-ins that are sold as
share or free ware. A Windows7 Home Builders Edition with enhanced upgrade
abilities and better early mainboard support might sell well... heck I might
even try it. As is, I'm standing pat for a while, at least on two of my
boxes..

"Rarius" wrote in message
...

Installing XP only takes 20-30mins... The other 39+ hours are spend
downloading and installing service packs, windows updates,
applications, service packs for applications etc etc etc

Sorry but it still doesn't take that long.

--
Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't
looking good either. - Scott Adams