PCA Forums

What is it that you do to do a like new install of XP over an old one? i did it before.. but dont remember how. you know... so when its done all your start menu stuff is still there, but the device manager stuff is like all new?

What you are talking about sounds like a "Repair Install". Just boot off your XP CD and choose to install XP on the 2sd or 3rd screen you will be given the option to "Repair Existing XP Install" just follow the on screen instructions from there.

ok thats what i thought it was. just didnt want to mess this up when it is time to do it.

Keep in mind that a repair install will put Windows back to the original version on the CD (if it's pre- SP-1 on the CD then it'll be a pre-SP-1 install and you'll have to re-install SP1 afterwards). Also all critical updates will need to be re-installed.

Have your drivers handy. A repair install will wipe the device manager database and install all your hardware clean like it was a new Windows install, using default generic drivers.

yea thats what im going after. Im changing mobo and video card so i think i should do that. i just dont want to loose all my other stuff. cool.

Chances are good that you will have to do a completely new installof XP if you change the MBand CPU. Just wanted to make sure you have all your important stuff backed up. If you do this then you should not have any worries.

In regedit find this key :

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG > SYSTEM > CURRENTCONTROLSET > ENUM

You simply Delete the entire ENUM key close regedit and shutdown your PC right there and move it to you new Rig. Boot the system. When Windows begins to load it will start detecting your new hardware and build your new hardware profiles ( this may take more than one restart of the OS)

well.. when i did it it was working fine... then i got the ideal to back up and reformat using the 2 partation system... and dumb ass me didnt realize that all my mail and favories is in documents and setting and not in program files so i ended up loosing all that stuff any ways... oh well. live and learn. I must say if my icq im stuffs was gone i would be really pissed but thats still ok. i did loose mail which sucks... and my favoriats and all the little tweaks and crap i had but oh well.

Kinda late now, but doesn't 2k and XP have a option to reset hardware configurations?
Thus leaving everything except hardware exactly the same, so you basically just have to install all your drivers agian.

I thought I saw something like that on one of the systems I was recently working on, and it seems a good way to install a new system board to me. Just install drive as is, reset hardware, install new drivers for new board plus drivers for the old parts you still have since they were also reset. Unless there is a reason to re-install the O/S like it is crashing alot or corupted somehow, I would think that should work well.

Yes. Repair install that was described above.

I meant more like click a button in windows itself and it resets/deletes all the drivers to defaults like for the first boot, all else stays the same. Only the hardware resets.
I thought I saw that in one of the systems recently, either W2K or XP or both. I know there is supposed to be the repair install from cd, but this was something different. Maybe it was under system tools in adminastrator or something.
Whatever it was I was thinking of, I found it by accident in an area or system I don't normaly go into and I never used it.