Who owns my PC?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Grover
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G

Grover

A long time ago I wrote and article for "PC Tech Journal" entitled
"Who owns my PC". It related to Lotus 1-2-3 's install program - which
was hard coded to only install on Drive C. At the time, I was one of
the first to have not one, but two hard drives! (Davong 10 mb if I
recall).

Seems we've come full circle - time to rewrite the article?

Is there any way to "Unlock" the program files folder? XP pro - SP 2
up to date..... got one solution over at .xpbasics, but thought I'd
ask here...... My need is to migrate from the "old" machine to the
"new" one.

Grov
 
Migrate what? The programs? You can't do that by simply copying them over.
You need to install them on the new machine. Only way to "migrate " a system
and apps is to clone the partition to the new drive and then run a Repair
install.
 
You did not give us any info on the old or new systems so here is a generic
migrate.
You could place the HD from the new system in the old as a slave and clone
the installation to that drive..then reinstall HD in new system and using
your XP SP2 CD do a repair installation to correct driver issues...new
mobo...new drivers.
You could place the old HD in the new system as the master changing the new
HD to slave and then reboot with the XP SP2 CD and again do a repair
install.

Of course all of the above only work if you have a retail version of XP...an
OEM version that resides on a "recovery" partition or CD of a preinstalled
system cannot be "migrated"
This version of XP is tied to the system you purchased it with.You bought
all of the hardware at that point in time but you basically only "leased"
the OS .You bought the rights to use the OS on that machine.Even with a
retail version you are basically only purchasing the rights to use the
product and as such there are certain limitations to that use...only one
computer at a time is one of them.
peter
 
A long time ago I wrote and article for "PC Tech Journal" entitled
"Who owns my PC". It related to Lotus 1-2-3 's install program - which
was hard coded to only install on Drive C. At the time, I was one of
the first to have not one, but two hard drives! (Davong 10 mb if I
recall).

Seems we've come full circle - time to rewrite the article?

Is there any way to "Unlock" the program files folder? XP pro - SP 2
up to date..... got one solution over at .xpbasics, but thought I'd
ask here...... My need is to migrate from the "old" machine to the
"new" one.

Grov
Click to expand...

In Windows, if you are "physically" changing the "old" machine with a
completely newer PC, you must re-install all the programs you wish to
have. You can not "move" the "old" machine's Program files over.
Each Windows system have their very own "registry" and this registry
is unique to each Windows system.

However, if you mean that you want to replace the old hard drive with
a newer hard drive, then you need to look at "disk cloning." This
copies the entire old hard drive over to the new hard drive and can
also "expand" the XP partitions during the expand. One very usefully
disk cloning utility was Norton Ghost, but I have not used it recently.
 
In Windows, if you are "physically" changing the "old" machine with a
completely newer PC, you must re-install all the programs you wish to
have. You can not "move" the "old" machine's Program files over.
Each Windows system have their very own "registry" and this registry
is unique to each Windows system.

However, if you mean that you want to replace the old hard drive with
a newer hard drive, then you need to look at "disk cloning." This
copies the entire old hard drive over to the new hard drive and can
also "expand" the XP partitions during the expand. One very usefully
disk cloning utility was Norton Ghost, but I have not used it recently.
Click to expand...


thanks for all the comments!

I realize that I will have to re-install all of the programs that
fiddle with the registry, but I have several utilities that, when I
acquired them, usually from a download, I installed in my "Program
Files" directory so that I could find them when needed. Most seem to
have a license file that has to live in a sub directory. Put the
license in the right place, and it works. The locking of that (program
files) directory, without my knowledge or permission is what I'm
objecting to...... an "advanced" button, tied to a workaround would
serve to protect the unwashed masses, and let some of us who think
they know what they are doing proceed.

Sometimes, I'd wish for the days of the S-100 bus, and my
pre-production PC 1 - two floppies - 5 1/4", and my Davong 10MB hard
disk! But then, no sexy, whirling cursors and other, resource
consuming animations!

I looked at Ghost, and got the feeling that it has been lobotomized
with current versions; I looked at Acronis, but I'm not ready to spend
more than the cost of the new PC to get the "universal clone" add on
to their disk image clone program.

Sorry for the rant; I reiterate - who owns my PC?

Grov
 
You own the hardware, but you're only licensed to use the software. Take it
or leave it. What you've run into is called "idiot-proofing". Quite
important for the majority of users, but inconvenient for the rest of us.
That's Microsoft, and if you can't take the bad with the good, you'll just
have to go somewhere else.

Hell, just copy the files/folders you want to share to another folder and
share it. It's that easy.
 
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