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What to delete in registry when moving old HD to new machine?

camara120

Senior member
Oct 9, 1999
406
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I strongly suggested my friend do a clean install, but he wants to just take the hard drive thats installed in his older system and move it to a new computer with better hardware. He's running Win98... I recall someone suggesting what things to delete in the registry so Windows would loose all its "memory" of what hardware it used to have and it would have to redetect everything. Does anyone know what items in the registry need to be deleted?

Thanks!
 

Tanner

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2001
7,391
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<< I strongly suggested my friend do a clean install, but he wants to just take the hard drive thats installed in his older system and move it to a new computer with better hardware. He's running Win98... I recall someone suggesting what things to delete in the registry so Windows would loose all its "memory" of what hardware it used to have and it would have to redetect everything. Does anyone know what items in the registry need to be deleted?

Thanks!
>>



I'd say you'll definately be able to tell your friend I TOLD YOU SOOOOOOOOO! :D
 

Zoltarc

Senior member
Sep 11, 2000
436
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I read something about removing all the components in Hardware Manager but I'm probably wrong. I try not to deal with win98 these days
 

metallibloke

Senior member
Mar 28, 2001
832
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Just beat your friend with a stick until he agrees to do a fresh install, it will save a lot of time and messing around, and he'll probably end up having to do a fresh install anyway.
 

vailr

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,365
54
91
First choice would be to upgrade to WinXP, much more stable OS.
For Win98/ME, delete HKLM/Enum key. Everything will then be re-detected, but some devices
will show up twice, when Device Manager is viewed in Safe Mode. (use F8 key to enter safe mode at boot-up).
If any device is shown twice, just delete both occurances and then re-boot in Normal mode to re-detect as a single device.
 

Uthiroid

Senior member
Aug 24, 2000
236
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can you migrate a win2k install like this too? i have apps that I want to keep, and I don't want to spend hours reinstalling.