Have to re-install XP - what about apps?

I am undertaking a mobo/CPU upgrade from an old Athlon AM2 + nVidia chipset to a new all Intel socket 775 setup, but retaining my XP (SP2) installation and all applications. With all the new hardware installed, I booted up only to get a blue screen as XP loaded. The blue screen lasted only a split second before the PC rebooted, so I couldn't check any error message. I contacted Gigabyte (both old and new mobos are Gigabyte) and they insist that such an upgrade requires re-installation of the O/S. :(

It looks as if I will have to bite this bullet if I want my hardware upgrade. But can I retain all my apps (which are installed on separate drives from XP), or will I need to re-install them too since their Registry entries will be lost when I re-install XP?

An over-the-top install would perserve the apps and related reg info but a complete XP reinstall would require reinstall of all the programs regardless of they're location.

WinXP Non-destructive Total Rebuild

How to perform a re-install of WinXP

Repair XP


I don't believe an over the top install would suffice for major hardware changes like that but since you're probably going to have to do a complete reinstall anyway it's worth a try.

fink

Many thanks for the speedy reply (what are you doing up at this hour? - must be before 6 am where you are :eek: )

However, will the non-destructive re-installation to which you have pointed me allow the installation of the necessary new chipset drivers?

I have a cat that makes sure I'm up very early :)

See the edit I made in the post above.. I don't believe the over the top install would do that but it's only an hour of your time to give it a shot.

Not sure that my XP installation CD - an upgrade from Win2K, not the full installation - provides a repair option anyway?

As you say, I have little to lose by trying an over-the-top install/repair. But I won't be undertaking it for a few days yet so I won't be posting back on this one for a while.

If it is a M$ cd, it will do the repair funtion.

This link even has the graphics.
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/How-t...s-XP-t138.html

Thanks for that, Train. It is a kosher M$ CD.

Then that should work.

Might want to print out that page I linked to first though.

Well - that turned out to be much easier than I expected. Thanks to some advice picked up on another forum I was able to complete my hardware upgrade without re-installing Win XP, or even going anywhere near the Repair function. All that was necessary was to uninstall all nVidia chipset drivers before removing the old mobo; then shut down the PC, carry out the hardware upgrade, and reboot. Win XP came up fine, reported that it had found several new items of hardware, installed the necessary drivers and now we're good to go. :D

Thanks for the info.

That's very interesting, mhl. Even though you switched from AMD to Intel, you didn't have to re-install of the o/s, just uninstalled the Nvidia chipset drivers before switching boards...interesting! I wonder if both boards being the same brand had anything to do with it?

stevejr

I don't think both mobos being Gigabyte had any effect. In the light of my success with my own PC, I have just undertaken a similar upgrade for a friend who bought the new kit and then chickened out :rolleyes: He has gone from Gigabyte to Asus and, again, no problems after first uninstalling the chipset drivers for the old mobo.

So how do you find ALL the chipset drivers for different models/makes of motherboards ?

Hit the mobo makers website, under support and they normally have them.

Or they are on the cd that came with the motherboard. Must admit, I have found the ones on the cd to be more up to date than some makers have available on their website. But sometimes we do luck out, so it is worth double checking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by eddds40

So how do you find ALL the chipset drivers for different models/makes of motherboards ?

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Let me rephrase that ALL of the ones you want to delete or uninstall from the drive you are going to take to new mother board .Before you shut it down for the last time.

eddds40

With a mobo based on an nVidia chipset, you will find under Add/Remove Programs an entry for "nVidia drivers". When you click on Remove, it offers a full list of the drivers it has installed and you can uninstall either completely or selectively. Other chipsets may differ of course.

You didn't have to re-register with M$ or anything like that? This seems like an easy way to change boards, as long as both are nvidia chipsets, and not have to go thru the re-format/re-register process. I had never heard of this procedure ...it almost sounds too easy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stevejr

You didn't have to re-register with M$ or anything like that? This seems like an easy way to change boards, as long as both are nvidia chipsets, and not have to go thru the re-format/re-register process. I had never heard of this procedure ...it almost sounds too easy.

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stevejr

You raise two points here. Let's take the one about nVidia chipsets first. I'm not sure that both old and new boards have to be nVidia-based: I have now undertaken this upgrade from Gigabyte/nVidia to Gigabyte/nvidia and to Asus/Intel.

The second point concerns product re-activation. In the normal course of events, I would expect that changing a mobo would cause XP to require a re-activation key from M$. In fact, in my case, this has not happened :cool: Indeed, my original XP installation never required product activation either - I think this must be because I arrived at XP Pro via an upgrade from Win2K (using a genuine M$ upgrade): when I finished this upgrade I was never prompted for product activation. Now, if I wanted to get the regular critical and security updates from the M$ web site, I would need Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) and this in turn would require that I get product activation. But, since I don't want M$ spying on me with WGA, I get my updates from WindizUpdate instead. But normally you can expect to be require to re-activate XP if you change a mobo.