Silly question? - Transferring my stuff to an Athlon mobo from a P3 in Win2k

[Praetor]

I am now the proud owner of an Athlon 900 MHz CPU/mobo combination. As I haven't even researched whether or not this is/was a good/bad deal, I'm running blind here. In any event, I expect to be thorougly pleased with the jump in speed and performance over my current rig.

That said. I've never done a complete system swap in Windows 2000 before. Can a pull off the same tricks I did in Windows 95/98 and just put in my drives and expect everything to be figured out by the system off the bat, or will I have to re-install the OS? What drivers will I need beforehand to ensure a stable crossover?

Ideas, suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated.

 

[sohcrates]

remove all system devices from device manager (you might have to do this in safe mode). shut down, build your new system, and on boot-up win2k SHOULD find it all again. i've heard of people doing it, so it's possible.

 

[obenton]

In my experience, w2k, unlike win9x, is pretty good about picking up adapters in new slots and making the necessary adjustments without fouling up the registry with duplicate entries that make NICs and other adapters not work properly. However, to be on the safe side, before moving the hard drive and adapters to the new motherboard, remove all the hardware in device manager and let everything get reinstalled in the new motherboard. I've occasionally forgotten to do this, when moving adapters around, and w2k never blinked - on one occasion throwing up a screen saying it now had two NICs in its database and which one did I want to use for the LAN, the old one or the new one - and never asking me about the "new" sound and SCSI cards, just making the adjustments itself and getting everything working OK. If I'd done the same thing with win98, it would have created a mess.