kingaff

So you have had that Windows XP or 2000 install working very nicley over a year or more and it's only working as good as it ever is going to get with countless of tweaks and hundreds of installed applications and updates, all configured to your liking, next you decide to buy a new/other mainboard and start cyring over either having to do a clean install (the proper way) or a repair of your Windows installation (resetting your registry to default meaning most of your apps and config changes will no longer work...)

There is a better way, it's called Sysprep. It's real use is in big organizations where you can configure a system the way it must be to be able to work in your organization, then you run sysprep and it removes the machine specific drivers/settings allowing you to make a Ghost image of the install and push it out to thousands of different machines which will all be configured peoperly by the mini setup that Sysprep configures the machines to run on the next bootup... Well that is the theory anyway

We will use it in a similar way, but only on a single system...

1: Download all the latest drivers for your system, especially remember the LAN drivers since XP might not support it by default and then it will be difficult to download the rest of the drivers when you have no net connection

2: Extract sysprep from your Windows install CD, it is under \support\tools\deploy.cab) to c:\sysprep (it can also be downloaded for XP or 2000.

3: Start Sysprep.exe choose Mini-Setup, PnP, and then Reseal. Your machine will shutdown when the process is completed.

4: Install your new mainboard and any other hardware, when you boot it up Windows should launch a mini setup wizard, similar to the normal 2000/XP install... The setup should prompt you for drivers it does not have, so lucky you that you downloaded them in step 1