Does XP copy protection prevent me from doing this?

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Editor www.nutritionsoftware.org

I am spending 2 weeks at a relative's this December. Since it's impractical
to take along my desktop, I am thinking of taking along an external hard
drive that has an exact image of my XP system drive.

My question is: can I plug this external hard drive to the XP machine at my
relative's and boot from the external drive so that I can have access to
everything as on my home PC?
I am afraid not, but want confirmation from others.
The reason I hope that it will work is that Windows can detect an existing
legal XP system on my relative's machine and won't complain about my
external copy of Windows which is installed for another machine.
Thanks for any info.
 
Greetings

Yes, Unless the system you are moving it too the the exact same you will
have to do a repair install of Windows to get it to even boot. Then when
you do boot Windows XP will see more than one hardware change, it will
require you to reactiavate. Since thats not the PC you should have it
installed on it's not going to work.
 
Greetings --

Normally, assuming a retail license, unless the new motherboard is
virtually identical to the old one (same chipset, same IDE
controllers, same BIOS version, etc.), you'll need to perform a repair
(a.k.a. in-place upgrade) installation, at the very least:

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341

As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.

This will probably also require re-activation. If it's been more
than 120 days since you last activated that specific Product Key,
you'll most likely be able to activate via the internet without
problem. If it's been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone
call.


Bruce Chambers

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having both at once. -- RAH
 
Editor said:
I am spending 2 weeks at a relative's this December. Since it's impractical
to take along my desktop, I am thinking of taking along an external hard
drive that has an exact image of my XP system drive.

My question is: can I plug this external hard drive to the XP machine at my
relative's and boot from the external drive so that I can have access to
everything as on my home PC?
I am afraid not, but want confirmation from others.
The reason I hope that it will work is that Windows can detect an existing
legal XP system on my relative's machine and won't complain about my
external copy of Windows which is installed for another machine.
Thanks for any info.
Click to expand...
Well, Not even thinking about the license agreement and activation
stuff... You probably won't even get it to boot. XP is very much
dependant on hardware configuration. You really can't just take a drive
that has XP installed on it and expect to boot it on another machine.
 
Ghost your friends HDD onto yours will be ok or install Windows 98 on it and
you should be able to use ok and have the 98 drivers for the Video,sound and
modem handy
 
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