NationStates Jolt Archive

I know quite a bit about computers, but I have never actually tried this.

Heres what I want to do, How would Windows XP Pro react to:

Ripping the Hard Drive with Windows XP out of a 900mhz duron.

And putting it into a 633mhz Celeron?

Both computers use very different hardware configuerations.
Would XP just install new drivers for the new Hardware?

Because the Soundcard and Video card are the same.

It might work, but the system might be rather unstable as bits of the previous system might hang around and cause problems. Why the downgrade of hardware? In theory, it should work. I've seen it done with Windows 2000 systems using very similar hardware though.

It should detect everything again.
If it doesn't work you can always boot in safe mode and remove the hardware profile from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Hardware Profiles
Of course, because of some undocumented features of XP, everything can crash at any time and you may have to reactivate your XP license for this machine (that is because Microsoft want to know what you do with your computer and they want to sell that to third parties).

What is the point BTW? Can't you use linux like the rest of us?

MandrakeLinux for you.

Heres What the Story is.

I always had that celeron in my room, because I bought it 4 years ago.


But I found that Duron in the trash. So I installed XP Pro on it. That Stupid HP Boot screen hid the clock speed, and until now I was to lazy to check it.

So I want to put the Duron in my room.

XP Pro on the celeron wouldn't matter, becase my famliy doest game AT ALL.

And I have a 2nd Celeron, Running Linspire, fun to tinker with.

fairly certain it won't work. it's probably going to blue screen sometime during boot, probably on one of the motherboard chipset drivers.

my famliy doest game AT ALL.
Seriously don't bother with XP at all. Just install whatever linux distro you prefer, or don't install at all and use a liveOnCD distro if you prefer.
The result is much more predictable and stable and it's free.

Seriously don't bother with XP at all. Just install whatever linux distro you prefer, or don't install at all and use a liveOnCD distro if you prefer.
The result is much more predictable and stable and it's free.
My siblings are to stupid for Linux, and XP pro was free.

I dont see why it shouldn't work, woulldnt XP just write over the old shit?

Any device drivers you have installed, most importantly any graphics drivers you have installed, must be removed and replaced with the relevant drivers for the new machine, be it intergrated or PCI/AGP card form. This is usually the biggest kick-in-the-face people get; forgetting to change drivers, or forgetting to uninstall old drivers before installing new ones.
So long as you alter the drivers, if should be OK. I'm not sure of the minimal system requirements for Windows XP though...

My siblings are to stupid for Linux, and XP pro was free.

I dont see why it shouldn't work, woulldnt XP just write over the old shit?
Well if it is a pirated XP, then there is no problem it should work because it won't have to update the license for the new machine. In case it doesn't work, try to remove the registry key I indicated earlier.
Anyway try Mandrake linux, it doesn't require to be a genius. You just put the CD and you boot. Everything should be handled automatically by Mandrake. If you put the MandrakeMove CD (it is one of the CDs you get with mandrake), it will not install anything and just run mandrake linux out of the CD, you don't even need a hard drive.
My mother uses mandrake linux and she barely knows how to use the mouse.

and it's free.

as long as you consider your time worthless. how about if we just let them run whatever they want to run, and just answer the specific question?

as long as you consider your time worthless. how about if we just let them run whatever they want to run, and just answer the specific question?
I'm not the tech support of Microsoft and my time is not worthless. Why should I help them for free when they charge me?

When I upgraded my XP machine a while back I put in a new motherboard,processor,memory etc, but kept my old hard disks in. When I'd finished with my screwdriver I found that XP wouldn't boot from my C: drive - the reason was because XP maintains a hardware profile, if what it expects differs from the hardware configuration it is given then it simply won't boot. I'm not sure whether this is to prevent piracy or because XP is configured at install time for performance issues.
I expect you'll run into the same problem as I did when you put your XP-drive into your new machine. I had to make a fresh install of XP to solve my problem, although there's probably a way around this if you look on the forums.

Try creating a new, blank, hardware profile and setting it as default before you change anything. It might work, it might not.