Can I escape without a reinstall?

[jnd3]

Finally, the upgrade is imminent. No more CPUs measured in piddly MHz, oh no (AMD Tbird 700 -> Athlon XP 2000+). No more of that PC133 stuff (Abit KT7 -> Asus A7N8X Deluxe). No more GF2 GTS (GF2 GTS -> GF4 Ti4200/128/8x).

BUT.

Has anyone had success swapping out a motherboard without a Windows reinstall? I've got Windows 2000 SP3, patched up to date, running smoothly. I'd like to avoid reinstalling if at all possible (I don't want to have to reinstall all my games/apps/etc.) and just move my hard drives over to the new system. I'll be going from an Abit KT-7 (Via KT133 chipset) to an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (Nforce2 chipset). I figure as long as I uninstall all the pertinent devices from the device manager I should be OK. At least, that's the hope...

Cheers,
JND

[saturnotaku]

I know someone who went from an Intel P2 chipset to an SiS 735 on Windows ME without having to reinstall. I guess as long as you uninstall the old devices related to your former motherboard you should be fine.

[PsychoSy]

Actually, if you whack the "Enum" keys the Registry, you might get away with a motherboard swap and Windows will just redetect everything without any hitch-hikers. But don't hold me to that! Back up that registry before going Al Capone all over it. ;)

[Starscream]

Originally posted by PsychoSy
Actually, if you whack the "Enum" keys the Registry, you might get away with a motherboard swap and Windows will just redetect everything without any hitch-hikers. But don't hold me to that! Back up that registry before going Al Capone all over it. ;)

I've done that several times on 9x and it works perfectly. Just make sure you have all your drivers and windows cabs on hand before you do it.

I've never tried it in 2k though, there's no ENUM key anymore but there is a hardware key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. I doubt it'll work though, 2k will probably bluescreen with an inacessible boot device error after you delete that and reboot.

[Nephilim]

You could try going into the device manager in safe mode and just remove the PCI Bus from the System Devices. That tends to remove all the motherboard devices.

Less messy than hacking the registry and not a show stopper if it doesn't work.

[jnd3]

Thanks, all!

What about hardware profiles? I wonder if I could create a new hardware profile, remove all the motherboard related devices from it, and boot using that profile. That way I wouldn't have to go all Tsubaki Sanjuro (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0056443) on the registry. I would hope that Windows would detect the new hardware and install the drivers for it (I do have the latest NForce2 drivers waiting for the hardware, too). Hmmmm.

Thanks again!
Cheers,
JND

[jnd3]

Alas, the fickle finger of fate denied a quick and painless upgrade. But the end results are well worth the pain! I'm still in the midst of seemingly endless Windows Updates, but the system is up, and it is good!

Out with the old:
Abit KT7
AMD Thunderbird 700
384 MB PC133
Creative Labs GeForce2 GTS
3DMark2K1SE: ~3100

In with the new:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (T-bred B)
512 MB Crucial PC2700 DDR
Asus V9280TD (GF4 Ti4200/AGP8x/128MB)
[Edit: 11153! Woohoo!]

So far, so good. I'm hoping to at least triple my old 3DMark scores. And Ghost Recon is going to look mighty pretty as well. Oh, and so will the free Morrowind that came with the video card! :)

Cheers,
JND