03-31-2005, 11:43 AM
Yah - XP is a very good version of Windows. Although don't get me started on Internet safety... Thats a bit ripe due to a couple of design decisions (ordinary users should NOT be administrator level users...) ;)
I've pulled that stunt that you have on about 3 upgrades. In most cases, it works fine. Watch out for a few peripheral driver issues (usually with USB 2 hub controller drivers).
Even if you reinstall Win XP into the existing windows directory - most of your programs will still work fine.
Even more oddly, you get away with a lot when you pull the same trick with Win98. You do have to have a pretty, er, robust (lunatic) attitude towards nasty comments from the OS, but I've upgraded from an Intel BX (Compaq) PIII motherboard to a VIA 266 Athlon XP1700+ motherboard and CPU (and changed the video card and had to reset the boot tracks on the drivewhile I was at it) and all was running fine after about 2 hours - no software reinstall required. I don't really recommend it though - quite a hairy practice with Win98. :blink:
Linux Just works. (My main PC runs Win98SE, WinXP and about 4 variants of Linux on a mutliboot setup). Never had to change a thing - detected the hardware on startup and reconfigured on the fly. - As long as the video was the same (on my main puter - it was).
HowGozit
I've pulled that stunt that you have on about 3 upgrades. In most cases, it works fine. Watch out for a few peripheral driver issues (usually with USB 2 hub controller drivers).
Even if you reinstall Win XP into the existing windows directory - most of your programs will still work fine.
Even more oddly, you get away with a lot when you pull the same trick with Win98. You do have to have a pretty, er, robust (lunatic) attitude towards nasty comments from the OS, but I've upgraded from an Intel BX (Compaq) PIII motherboard to a VIA 266 Athlon XP1700+ motherboard and CPU (and changed the video card and had to reset the boot tracks on the drivewhile I was at it) and all was running fine after about 2 hours - no software reinstall required. I don't really recommend it though - quite a hairy practice with Win98. :blink:
Linux Just works. (My main PC runs Win98SE, WinXP and about 4 variants of Linux on a mutliboot setup). Never had to change a thing - detected the hardware on startup and reconfigured on the fly. - As long as the video was the same (on my main puter - it was).
HowGozit