Upgrading system & OS at the same time

[sabka]

I want to move my current win2k installation to a new rig and upgrade to winxp pro at the same time.

What's the best way to do this?
Should I complete the move to the new rig and let win2k repair itself (to recognize the new hardware configuration) and then upgrade to winxp ?

Or should I drop the HD in the new rig and just boot with the winxp disk and try the upgrade that way?

 

[Need4Speed]

why not do a clean install of xp on the new hardware?

 

[sabka]

because it would take forever to reinstall all the programs that I have installed on my current sys.
And just thinking about looking for all the CDs and installation files gives me nightmares.

 

[Need4Speed]

well as with anything, you get what you pay for...id be willing to bet, that by the time you get done fussin around with the upgrade, you'll have wished that you did a fresh install. you leave yourself open to all kinds of problems, not only from the change in hardware, but also from the upgrade.

"If youre going to do something, do it right, or dont do it at all"....words to live by

 

[LegionX]

i would back up important data and do a clean install. this will save alot of troubleshooting. one thing - do not authenticate xp for atleast a week becuase you might end up with conflicts or problems with the new system and having to reinstall and reauthorize can be a pain in the butt. make sure everything is stable then do the authenticity.

also i recommend using some sort of backup program like diskimage2002 or ghost and load xp,system drivers depending on mb and sp1 plus all available patches and then back up - do not load video drivers or anything that gets updated very often- do this and send in authorization before backup and when you need to redo system you wont have to redo the ask bill for permission crap.

 

[sabka]

i agree with you...this would be my first "upgrade" ever, although I've clean-installed win2k hundreds of times.
the only reason I "considered" upgrading is because of all the programs that I would need to reinstall.

Is upgrading really so bad?

 

[Need4Speed]

trust me....youll be MUCH better off in the long run if you take the extra time. the system will be more stable and much more responsive...I can guarantee you that.

 

[sabka]

I'll take your advise and do a clean install...damn you

@LegionX:
do you think I should burn a backup on DVD?
And should I install standart programs like Office before I do the backup?

I'm assuming you're talking about basically making an "image" of my HD for recovery purposes, right?

 

[Need4Speed]

i usually make 2 images....one is just the fresh install of the OS with all the updats, the second is an image with all my programs that i use all the time (office, winrar, trillian, etc). that way you can fall back to a complete fresh install or a base install

 

[sabka]

do you burn those images on CD/DVD ?
what program do you use?

 

[Need4Speed]

you can burn them to cd if you span them to 700mb files. Norton Ghost supports writing images to cdr (as do other cloning software), and will auto-span them. in my setup, all images are clones across a network and kept on a central server.