Upgrading Motherboard with Windows XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter DSB
  • Start date Start date
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DSB

Does anyone have experience upgrading a Motherboard with
Windows XP? Will it recognize and adjusst to the new
components, or do I need to reinstall the OS, as with
previous versions?

Thanks
 
Upgrading your motherboard will require you to reactivate windows xp because
a major component (your Motherboard) has been changed. Personally I have
never relied upon xp to configure a new motherboard. To prevent any problems
I have always install the new motherboard and then reinstall windows xp.
That is the way I would do it. However, having said that I would imagine
that xp should pick up the new hardware configuration but, as I have said,
you will probably be asked to reactivate which means xp will not boot up to
the desktop until activation has been completed.
 
Actually, John, its a crap shoot as to whether XP will even boot or not. It doesn't like being moved from one chipset hard disk controller to another. It might be possible to preinstall all of the drivers, but since it will try to use its existing drivers first, it will almost certainly blue screen on boot.
 
I have had good results letting windows xp detect the needed drivers when
changing the motherboard, what do you have to loose trying it and if it
doesn't work then do a repair install, out of the last 5 or 6 different
motherboards, I had to do a repair install once.

Actually, John, its a crap shoot as to whether XP will even boot or not. It
doesn't like being moved from one chipset hard disk controller to another.
It might be possible to preinstall all of the drivers, but since it will try
to use its existing drivers first, it will almost certainly blue screen on
boot.

--
Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows XP/ Windows Smart Display
Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
http://www.dougknox.com
 
Is it possible to just go under Device Manager and remove everything under System Devices and the install the new mobo? It would be a bit of a pain, but couldn't that work as far as XP loading new system drivers?

Eric.
 
Anything's possible, Eric. But at worst, be prepared to do a repair installation.

--
Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows XP/ Windows Smart Display
Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
http://www.dougknox.com
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http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm
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Please reply only to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
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Is it possible to just go under Device Manager and remove everything under System Devices and the install the new mobo? It would be a bit of a pain, but couldn't that work as far as XP loading new system drivers?

Eric.
 
In the old days of 98, SE, and ME a suggestion was to run regedit and delete
the ENUM key(s). This was done because ENUM held all the hardware info and
was re-created each time Windows started.

I have no idea if this is a posibility in XP.

Is it possible to just go under Device Manager and remove everything under
System Devices and the install the new mobo? It would be a bit of a pain,
but couldn't that work as far as XP loading new system drivers?

Eric.
 
In the old days of 98, SE, and ME a suggestion was to run regedit and delete
the ENUM key(s). This was done because ENUM held all the hardware info and
was re-created each time Windows started.

I have no idea if this is a posibility in XP.
Click to expand...

As the others have said, it doesn't work that way under NT.
You need to do a repair install. This forces hardware redetection but
keeps your apps and settings.

Boot with the XP CD.

At the first prompt don't choose repair - that's for when the boot files
or boot sector gets corrupted.

Instead just choose to install XP. The installer will find your previous
installation of XP. At this point you can choose to repair the existing
XP installation.

It takes about as installing from scratch except you don't have to do all
the fiddling and reconfiguring afterwards.
 
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