dumb question on xp system change

[rise]

ok, admittedly i haven't had enough coffee but i was thinking as i pulled my VGA to ship and was planning out tomorrow when my new mobo/cpu come. why is it not practical to just do a repair install on xp instead of a new install? i don't mean the recovery console thing, but selecting new install, let xp find the existing partition and then select repair?

i have seen guides to do it but it seems to require all kinds of uninstall of drivers, controllers etc. and seems rather hit or miss. is it that it is too much info for windows to process? too much info left over from the previous config? i'm not concerned about re-installing games and whatnot although small apps on the os partition would be nice to keep.

i have pretty much resigned myself to a fresh install anyway and have backed up enything i need. it just seems odd to me.

 

[Smilin]

If you are already backed up, yes by all means do a repair.

Should work like a champ. Checkout KB249694 also. There might be an XP version of that out there I think.

A repair install (aka inplace upgrade) leaves your 3rd party registry entries intact in the software hive and pretty much just hacks out the portions that are used for hardware. It's a pretty reliable and safe way to handle major hardware changes like mobo or mass storage controller (be sure to hit F6 when u start setup).

You shouldn't have to reinstall a single app.

Be sure to hit windows update when it completes. It will roll you back to your installation media's base service pack.

 

[rise]

thank you smilin. i keep reading these posts that say a complete re-insttall is necessary unless i just misunderstood.