Installing on different hardware

I'm planning to take the backup of my XP partition and use this
opportunity to move to another box.

Paragon Backup and Recovery, and I'm sure any similar software like
Acronis True Image Home 2011 Plus**, requires a copy of the drivers for
the new hardware. Dell has them all online, but they're all in .exe
form.

ISTM, if I run the .exe files, it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32, or maybe someplace else. I don't want them in my
current computer, and I don't want to have to hunt for them, figure out
which one's just showed up***, to put them on the CD I'm making with the
drivers. What do people do in this situation?

Also, do you have a guess if they all have to be in the exact same
subdirectory?? I sort of want to keep them in separate ones on the CD,
to keep track which one is for what. IIUC, the chipset driver is the
only one I absolutely have to install.

Also, since the old computer is also a Dell with a slightly lower
number, what would happen if I just installed the harddrive with no
driver updates? Can it damage its own files? I'm scared about this
because something in the old computer cost me many files on the original
partition, in fact the entire Windows subdirectory was gone after I ran
chkdsk****. (I ran both new and old memtest (4 passes and 6 passes) and
it found no errors.)

****I wish I'd checked before running it.

***I don't even know how I would find them. Date won't work because the
drivers are several years old. I don't have a list of their names or
even know where to get a list. The Dell Support page just lists the
..exe files and not the .dll etc.


**Which may or may not include enough software to do this. The ATHI box
says it does but the manual seems to say it doesn't. I think I get it
now.... The manual was probably not updated when the product name was
changed, so it claims I need Acronis software by a different name from
what I have. This was what stymied me reading the manual. So I'm
going to go back and read the Acronis manual some more.

On 06/10/2015 21:48, micky wrote:
I'm planning to take the backup of my XP partition and use this
opportunity to move to another box.

Paragon Backup and Recovery, and I'm sure any similar software like
Acronis True Image Home 2011 Plus**, requires a copy of the drivers for
the new hardware. Dell has them all online, but they're all in .exe
form.

ISTM, if I run the .exe files, it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32, or maybe someplace else. I don't want them in my
current computer, and I don't want to have to hunt for them, figure out
which one's just showed up***, to put them on the CD I'm making with the
drivers. What do people do in this situation?

Also, do you have a guess if they all have to be in the exact same
subdirectory?? I sort of want to keep them in separate ones on the CD,
to keep track which one is for what. IIUC, the chipset driver is the
only one I absolutely have to install.

Also, since the old computer is also a Dell with a slightly lower
number, what would happen if I just installed the harddrive with no
driver updates? Can it damage its own files? I'm scared about this
because something in the old computer cost me many files on the original
partition, in fact the entire Windows subdirectory was gone after I ran
chkdsk****. (I ran both new and old memtest (4 passes and 6 passes) and
it found no errors.)

****I wish I'd checked before running it.

***I don't even know how I would find them. Date won't work because the
drivers are several years old. I don't have a list of their names or
even know where to get a list. The Dell Support page just lists the
.exe files and not the .dll etc.


**Which may or may not include enough software to do this. The ATHI box
says it does but the manual seems to say it doesn't. I think I get it
now.... The manual was probably not updated when the product name was
changed, so it claims I need Acronis software by a different name from
what I have. This was what stymied me reading the manual. So I'm
going to go back and read the Acronis manual some more.


Ignoring any activation problems you might face with XP and/or
applications such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Suite, you can
run the exe files after restoring the image on the new machines. I have
done this long time ago but with Corporate versions of XP and Office
packages which required no activation.

Why not run a dummy run to see if it works or not. don't you think you
should try it to learn from the experience!!! Me thinks so.

micky wrote:
I'm planning to take the backup of my XP partition and use this
opportunity to move to another box.

Paragon Backup and Recovery, and I'm sure any similar software like
Acronis True Image Home 2011 Plus**, requires a copy of the drivers for
the new hardware. Dell has them all online, but they're all in .exe
form.

ISTM, if I run the .exe files, it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32, or maybe someplace else. I don't want them in my
current computer, and I don't want to have to hunt for them, figure out
which one's just showed up***, to put them on the CD I'm making with the
drivers. What do people do in this situation?

Also, do you have a guess if they all have to be in the exact same
subdirectory?? I sort of want to keep them in separate ones on the CD,
to keep track which one is for what. IIUC, the chipset driver is the
only one I absolutely have to install.

Also, since the old computer is also a Dell with a slightly lower
number, what would happen if I just installed the harddrive with no
driver updates? Can it damage its own files? I'm scared about this
because something in the old computer cost me many files on the original
partition, in fact the entire Windows subdirectory was gone after I ran
chkdsk****. (I ran both new and old memtest (4 passes and 6 passes) and
it found no errors.)

****I wish I'd checked before running it.

***I don't even know how I would find them. Date won't work because the
drivers are several years old. I don't have a list of their names or
even know where to get a list. The Dell Support page just lists the
.exe files and not the .dll etc.


**Which may or may not include enough software to do this. The ATHI box
says it does but the manual seems to say it doesn't. I think I get it
now.... The manual was probably not updated when the product name was
changed, so it claims I need Acronis software by a different name from
what I have. This was what stymied me reading the manual. So I'm
going to go back and read the Acronis manual some more.

I break the problem into three parts:

1) Make a backup, so you can start over again in any case.

Always have a "Plan B" when it comes to computers. Never go
off on a dangerous adventure, without materials present so you
can put the original setup back together again. I've learned
this the hard way, by having to take all the hardware out of
a new PC build, and putting the old hardware back in, just
because I hadn't done enough preparation for disasters in
advance. Now, when I move between machines, I leave the old
machine completely assembled, so if I do something stupid,
it doesn't hurt quite so much :-) My backup usually takes
the form of "cloning" to a new drive, so the old drive is
never in any danger from the "experiment".

2) Activation issues. Moving a C: from one computer to another,
the Genuine check can notice the hardware is all different.
In the worst case, you cannot enter any input or interact
with the computer at all, so you're screwed. In less serious
cases, you are given a 72 hour deadline to "fix" activation.

One post I could find, a dude says he moves Dell disks between
Dell machines, without a problem. So I presume the Genuine check
isn't a problem there. As long as the motherboard is Dell, it
should work (SLIC activation). That's what finding that post
tells me.

3) Drivers. You need *at least* a working storage driver. This
is a damn sight short of having a complete set of drivers. The
OS won't come up without a storage driver. The OS can survive
without the rest of them.

In some cases, the OS has I/O space and PCI space storage drivers,
and those happen to work on, say, Intel chipsets set in compatible
or native mode.

On WinXP, there is no built-in AHCI driver. But Intel offers their
driver as a floppy image with TXTSETUP.OEM and blah.INF files, and
no EXE files are involved. You can also slipstream such a driver,
using NLiteOS, into your installer CD, and prepare a CD capable
of repairing something with AHCI BIOS setting.

*******

One way to get the hard drive from one Dell to another, where you're
unsure about storage (second Dell is stuck in AHCI and has no option),
is to use a separate storage card. Say, for example, you have a VIA SATA
card. The VIA card has a WinXP driver. You install the VIA SATA card
in the old Dell. Insert the VIA driver CD. Install the VIA driver.
Shut down. Move the SATA cable from the motherboard end, to a connector
on the VIA. Adjust the boot settings so the old Dell boots off the
VIA port. Shut down. You've proven you can boot from the VIA card.
Now, you're ready to boot from the VIA port, and don't have to worry
about the missing AHCI driver for storage. Now you need zero drivers
for the new computer, as long as the VIA card goes with you.

OK, now, move the hard drive to the new computer. Move the VIA card
from the old computer (unplugged) into the new computer (similarly
unplugged for safety). Connect the hard drive to a VIA port. Now, when
it boots up, it will be using the VIA storage driver. No matter how
broken the rest of the drivers are, you're booted. You're looking at
a 640x480 screen with no video acceleration or ability to change
display resolution to a reasonable value.

You can now grab an Intel EXE for AHCI if you wanted, and EXE for RAID,
a graphics EXE installer and so on. Since the machine is booted, you
should be able to finish installing all other drivers. Once the Intel
driver for storage is in place (whatever you use), you shut down,
move the SATA cable from the VIA SATA back to the Intel motherboard SATA.
Now, you have the option of removing the VIA card.

And that's what I call "bouncing" the OS from one machine to another.
By using a storage card with drivers that'll work on either machine,
you have no worries about a storage driver being present.

*******

Once a working storage driver is present, there should never be any
issues about "CHKDSK, Missing files or folders" and so on. If the file
system had good integrity before, it should have good integrity afterwards.

One way to really foul up a file system, is to have a computer with bad
RAM, and insist on doing lots and lots of data transfers, while the
RAM remains bad. Now, all sorts of stuff is corrupted, and it's just
a disaster waiting to happen. When I say the file system is bulletproof,
what I mean is "only if the CPU and RAM and chipset are error free".
If your computer is not a computer, but a Cuisinart Blender, then
it will take your file system and make a Smoothie out of it :-) Always
make sure the basic computer is functioning correctly and that it
really is a computer. I do this testing with memtest, as well as a
Linux boot CD and a copy of the Linux version of Prime95. That's a
start. You can even do that sort of testing on the new computer,
before it's even time to move hardware from the old machine.

(Prime95 for the Torture test of CPU and RAM...)
http://www.mersenne.org/download/

Paul

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Tue, 6 Oct 2015 22:24:01
+0100, Good Guy wrote:

On 06/10/2015 21:48, micky wrote:
I'm planning to take the backup of my XP partition and use this
opportunity to move to another box.

Paragon Backup and Recovery, and I'm sure any similar software like
Acronis True Image Home 2011 Plus**, requires a copy of the drivers for
the new hardware. Dell has them all online, but they're all in .exe
form.

ISTM, if I run the .exe files, it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32, or maybe someplace else. I don't want them in my
current computer, and I don't want to have to hunt for them, figure out
which one's just showed up***, to put them on the CD I'm making with the
drivers. What do people do in this situation?

Also, do you have a guess if they all have to be in the exact same
subdirectory?? I sort of want to keep them in separate ones on the CD,
to keep track which one is for what. IIUC, the chipset driver is the
only one I absolutely have to install.

Also, since the old computer is also a Dell with a slightly lower
number, what would happen if I just installed the harddrive with no
driver updates? Can it damage its own files? I'm scared about this
because something in the old computer cost me many files on the original
partition, in fact the entire Windows subdirectory was gone after I ran
chkdsk****. (I ran both new and old memtest (4 passes and 6 passes) and
it found no errors.)

****I wish I'd checked before running it.

***I don't even know how I would find them. Date won't work because the
drivers are several years old. I don't have a list of their names or
even know where to get a list. The Dell Support page just lists the
.exe files and not the .dll etc.


**Which may or may not include enough software to do this. The ATHI box
says it does but the manual seems to say it doesn't. I think I get it
now.... The manual was probably not updated when the product name was
changed, so it claims I need Acronis software by a different name from
what I have. This was what stymied me reading the manual. So I'm
going to go back and read the Acronis manual some more.


Ignoring any activation problems you might face with XP and/or
applications such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Suite, you can
run the exe files after restoring the image on the new machines. I have
done this long time ago but with Corporate versions of XP and Office
packages which required no activation.

Why not run a dummy run to see if it works or not.

That a good idea, and I might well do that, but I still want to know how
to prepare a set of drivers for a given computer. This isn't the only
occaions when I might need that.

So, if I run the .exe files,it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32 or maybe someplace else. How do I extract them to a
place where I can easily find them, and they won't be installed in my
current computer, with which they have no relationship?


don't you think you
should try it to learn from the experience!!! Me thinks so.

On Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:02:09 -0400, micky
wrote:


That a good idea, and I might well do that, but I still want to know how
to prepare a set of drivers for a given computer. This isn't the only
occaions when I might need that.

So, if I run the .exe files,it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32 or maybe someplace else. How do I extract them to a
place where I can easily find them, and they won't be installed in my
current computer, with which they have no relationship?

This .EXE might be a self extracting zip. If so something like winrar
will crack it open for you.

That is what I did with the driver Paul was talking about for my X200
problem. It came down as an EXE too.

On 07/10/2015 04:37, wrote:
This .EXE might be a self extracting zip. If so something like winrar
will crack it open for you. That is what I did with the driver Paul
was talking about for my X200 problem. It came down as an EXE too.

Correct. DELL drivers normally extract themselves in a folder as you
can see from the picture I attach he

DELL Drivers
http://content.screencast.com/users/JT19560819/folders/Jing/media/28c671be-9e48-459a-80f8-d1ad6fd893e4/2015-10-07_0441.png

Once the drivers are extracted, you need to run the setup.exe files to
install the drivers. The folders contain the DLL files but I am not
sure what they are - but the 64 bit drivers are in a different folder.

Sub-Folder
http://content.screencast.com/users/JT19560819/folders/Jing/media/fdcb8410-9563-448f-9902-81ae907855e7/2015-10-07_0445.png

Good luck.

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:37:17
-0400, wrote:

On Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:02:09 -0400, micky
wrote:


That a good idea, and I might well do that, but I still want to know how
to prepare a set of drivers for a given computer. This isn't the only
occaions when I might need that.

So, if I run the .exe files,it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32 or maybe someplace else. How do I extract them to a
place where I can easily find them, and they won't be installed in my
current computer, with which they have no relationship?

This .EXE might be a self extracting zip. If so something like winrar
will crack it open for you.

Wow. PowerDesk 8 has an unzipper that I usually use, and since it
didnt' offer to unzip this, I thought it wouldn't. But winrar extracted
all but 2 of them, plus one is said was corrupt. But I had a CD I made
last year and it had a better copy of the bad one.

However there was a lot more more than dll files in them. There was
setup.exe, cab files, etc. etc!!. I should have expected that. You'd
think I'd never installed drivers before. I think I'm part way there.

I'll keep reading. For other reasons I went through my Amazon
archives and saw that I paid $45 for Paragon and 25 for Acronis about 3
years ago. Anything over 5 is real money. They'd better work,
eventually.

That is what I did with the driver Paul was talking about for my X200
problem. It came down as an EXE too.

I'll reread what Paul said. That post was a mouthful and I'm still
digesting it. Thanks, Paul.

BTW, Good Guy, I also have another, possibly better, Gateway computer,
that I might decide to load my system onto. I chose the Dell, because
I have a Dell Reinstall XP CD, but last I looked, Ebay has the same
thing for the Gateway for 10 dollars, and aiui, the Dell or an HP CD
that I have might work also. Of course depending on my reading of
the manuals for moving to other hardware, it might be that no prior OS
is needed. It says iiuc in one case something about starting with
their CD, that I paid for**, using it to modify the backup file and
putting that straight into the computer, even the Gateway.

**A linux OS. If I want WinPE, I think I have to pay again.

In addition, I have the original XP CD that I bought, and since XP will
probably never be back on the old computer again, aiui, the license
should transfer to either of the other computers. I figured the Dell
would be easier, but transferring the license might not be needed
because both the Dell and the Gateway have their own stickers on the
boxes. So won't they use their own sticker Product Keys with no
complaint??

Yesterday I dl'd SP3, for XP, straight from MS, and their webpage urged
me not to do it, saying the easier method is to install XP less than SP3
and let Automatic Updates do SP3. If the page is current and that's
still true, that's good to hear, and a reason to load BOTH computers
with XP, even if I only use one. I can always upgrade later.

Boy do I want to get out of Vista. Although I'm getting used to
avoiding the problem areas, sort of like elephants in Angola have
learned to avoid the land mines.

On 10/6/2015 2:37 PM, Paul wrote:
micky wrote:
I'm planning to take the backup of my XP partition and use this
opportunity to move to another box.
Paragon Backup and Recovery, and I'm sure any similar software like
Acronis True Image Home 2011 Plus**, requires a copy of the drivers for
the new hardware. Dell has them all online, but they're all in .exe
form.

Stick the service tag number of the new system in the box at
support.dell.com
and download all the XP drivers to a thumb drive.
You won't need them until after you get the old drive running
in the new system, then install them from the thumb drive.
If XP drivers for the new system exist, you're good to go.
If the new system is significantly newer than the old one,
XP drivers may not exist...or you may have to go on a scavenger
hunt to find drivers for each hardware device. Report back if
you need help with that hunt.

ISTM, if I run the .exe files, it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32, or maybe someplace else. I don't want them in my
current computer, and I don't want to have to hunt for them, figure out
which one's just showed up***, to put them on the CD I'm making with the
drivers. What do people do in this situation?
Also, do you have a guess if they all have to be in the exact same
subdirectory?? I sort of want to keep them in separate ones on the CD,
to keep track which one is for what. IIUC, the chipset driver is the
only one I absolutely have to install.
Also, since the old computer is also a Dell with a slightly lower
number, what would happen if I just installed the harddrive with no
driver updates? Can it damage its own files? I'm scared about this
because something in the old computer cost me many files on the original
partition, in fact the entire Windows subdirectory was gone after I ran
chkdsk****. (I ran both new and old memtest (4 passes and 6 passes) and
it found no errors.)
****I wish I'd checked before running it.
***I don't even know how I would find them. Date won't work because the
drivers are several years old. I don't have a list of their names or
even know where to get a list. The Dell Support page just lists the
.exe files and not the .dll etc.

**Which may or may not include enough software to do this. The ATHI box
says it does but the manual seems to say it doesn't. I think I get it
now.... The manual was probably not updated when the product name was
changed, so it claims I need Acronis software by a different name from
what I have. This was what stymied me reading the manual. So I'm
going to go back and read the Acronis manual some more.

The acronis software requires a driver capable of talking to the hard drive.
That's a different issue from the driver that lets XP talk to the hard drive
after it boots in the new computer.
If you clone the drive in the old system, it shouldn't be an issue.

I break the problem into three parts:

1) Make a backup, so you can start over again in any case.

Always have a "Plan B" when it comes to computers. Never go
off on a dangerous adventure, without materials present so you
can put the original setup back together again. I've learned
this the hard way, by having to take all the hardware out of
a new PC build, and putting the old hardware back in, just
because I hadn't done enough preparation for disasters in
advance. Now, when I move between machines, I leave the old
machine completely assembled, so if I do something stupid,
it doesn't hurt quite so much :-) My backup usually takes
the form of "cloning" to a new drive, so the old drive is
never in any danger from the "experiment".

2) Activation issues. Moving a C: from one computer to another,
the Genuine check can notice the hardware is all different.

My experience has been that you can move a drive from one dell
to another dell of similar vintage without activation issues.
This assumes you have the original DELL OEM software installed.
Download a keyfinder like magical jellybean.
If the key it finds differs from the one on the COA sticker attached
to the hardware, it's likely, but not guaranteed, that you have original
OEM software.

In the worst case, you cannot enter any input or interact
with the computer at all, so you're screwed. In less serious
cases, you are given a 72 hour deadline to "fix" activation.

My recent experience with XP-SP3 was that the 72 hour deadline stated
expired
in approximately 3 reboots over a couple of hours. Fix it immediately.
I trusted the 72 hours and got locked out.
Problem is that if it doesn't automagically activate, the key from
jellybean won't work and the key on the sticker may not work either.
YMMV

One post I could find, a dude says he moves Dell disks between
Dell machines, without a problem. So I presume the Genuine check
isn't a problem there. As long as the motherboard is Dell, it
should work (SLIC activation). That's what finding that post
tells me.

3) Drivers. You need *at least* a working storage driver. This
is a damn sight short of having a complete set of drivers. The
OS won't come up without a storage driver. The OS can survive
without the rest of them.
I missed the part where he stated model numbers for the two dell systems.
If they're sufficiently close, you should be able to clone the drive
in the old machine and move it to the new machine and it will just work.
Then update the drivers from the dell site.
If not sufficiently close, you may be able to set the BIOS on the new
machine to run the disks in legacy mode (Not AHCI) to make it work.
If you can't do that, a driver may not help you.
And if the hardware are very far apart, you may not be able to set
a BIOS mode to let your drive boot...period.

I don't have any XP experience with this, but with win7, you can
run sysprep generalize in the old system, shut it down, move the drive
to the new system and it will do a fresh driver install without
a bluescreen. Then you can update drivers from the thumb drive you
downloaded. Sysprep is not installed on XP, but it is on the
XP installation disk or can be downloaded from MS.

All of this violates the TOS. There's a reason they didn't make it
easy. If your new box has a XP COA sticker, I believe you're on
firm ethical ground. Legally...that's for another discussion.
If your new box has a COA for a newer OS version, kick XP to the curb
and go with that.

Summary...
Back it up...don't skip that step.
Move the drive to the new system and see if it boots.
If it does, you're likely home free.
If it doesn't, and you don't like banging your head on the wall,
I'd find a Dell XP install disk and start over. I believe most Dell
consumer systems of XP vintage came with such a disk. If your
new system postdates shipping a disk with the system, start with a
newer OS.
The above makes MANY assumptions...
So many variables...so little specific information.

In some cases, the OS has I/O space and PCI space storage drivers,
and those happen to work on, say, Intel chipsets set in compatible
or native mode.

On WinXP, there is no built-in AHCI driver. But Intel offers their
driver as a floppy image with TXTSETUP.OEM and blah.INF files, and
no EXE files are involved. You can also slipstream such a driver,
using NLiteOS, into your installer CD, and prepare a CD capable
of repairing something with AHCI BIOS setting.

*******

One way to get the hard drive from one Dell to another, where you're
unsure about storage (second Dell is stuck in AHCI and has no option),
is to use a separate storage card. Say, for example, you have a VIA SATA
card. The VIA card has a WinXP driver. You install the VIA SATA card
in the old Dell. Insert the VIA driver CD. Install the VIA driver.
Shut down. Move the SATA cable from the motherboard end, to a connector
on the VIA. Adjust the boot settings so the old Dell boots off the
VIA port. Shut down. You've proven you can boot from the VIA card.
Now, you're ready to boot from the VIA port, and don't have to worry
about the missing AHCI driver for storage. Now you need zero drivers
for the new computer, as long as the VIA card goes with you.

OK, now, move the hard drive to the new computer. Move the VIA card
from the old computer (unplugged) into the new computer (similarly
unplugged for safety). Connect the hard drive to a VIA port. Now, when
it boots up, it will be using the VIA storage driver. No matter how
broken the rest of the drivers are, you're booted. You're looking at
a 640x480 screen with no video acceleration or ability to change
display resolution to a reasonable value.

You can now grab an Intel EXE for AHCI if you wanted, and EXE for RAID,
a graphics EXE installer and so on. Since the machine is booted, you
should be able to finish installing all other drivers. Once the Intel
driver for storage is in place (whatever you use), you shut down,
move the SATA cable from the VIA SATA back to the Intel motherboard SATA.
Now, you have the option of removing the VIA card.

And that's what I call "bouncing" the OS from one machine to another.
By using a storage card with drivers that'll work on either machine,
you have no worries about a storage driver being present.

*******

Once a working storage driver is present, there should never be any
issues about "CHKDSK, Missing files or folders" and so on. If the file
system had good integrity before, it should have good integrity afterwards.

One way to really foul up a file system, is to have a computer with bad
RAM, and insist on doing lots and lots of data transfers, while the
RAM remains bad. Now, all sorts of stuff is corrupted, and it's just
a disaster waiting to happen. When I say the file system is bulletproof,
what I mean is "only if the CPU and RAM and chipset are error free".
If your computer is not a computer, but a Cuisinart Blender, then
it will take your file system and make a Smoothie out of it :-) Always
make sure the basic computer is functioning correctly and that it
really is a computer. I do this testing with memtest, as well as a
Linux boot CD and a copy of the Linux version of Prime95. That's a
start. You can even do that sort of testing on the new computer,
before it's even time to move hardware from the old machine.

(Prime95 for the Torture test of CPU and RAM...)
http://www.mersenne.org/download/

Paul

micky wrote:
In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:37:17
-0400, wrote:

On Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:02:09 -0400, micky
wrote:


That a good idea, and I might well do that, but I still want to know how
to prepare a set of drivers for a given computer. This isn't the only
occaions when I might need that.

So, if I run the .exe files,it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32 or maybe someplace else. How do I extract them to a
place where I can easily find them, and they won't be installed in my
current computer, with which they have no relationship?
This .EXE might be a self extracting zip. If so something like winrar
will crack it open for you.

Wow. PowerDesk 8 has an unzipper that I usually use, and since it
didnt' offer to unzip this, I thought it wouldn't. But winrar extracted
all but 2 of them, plus one is said was corrupt. But I had a CD I made
last year and it had a better copy of the bad one.

However there was a lot more more than dll files in them. There was
setup.exe, cab files, etc. etc!!. I should have expected that. You'd
think I'd never installed drivers before. I think I'm part way there.

I'll keep reading. For other reasons I went through my Amazon
archives and saw that I paid $45 for Paragon and 25 for Acronis about 3
years ago. Anything over 5 is real money. They'd better work,
eventually.

That is what I did with the driver Paul was talking about for my X200
problem. It came down as an EXE too.

I'll reread what Paul said. That post was a mouthful and I'm still
digesting it. Thanks, Paul.

BTW, Good Guy, I also have another, possibly better, Gateway computer,
that I might decide to load my system onto. I chose the Dell, because
I have a Dell Reinstall XP CD, but last I looked, Ebay has the same
thing for the Gateway for 10 dollars, and aiui, the Dell or an HP CD
that I have might work also. Of course depending on my reading of
the manuals for moving to other hardware, it might be that no prior OS
is needed. It says iiuc in one case something about starting with
their CD, that I paid for**, using it to modify the backup file and
putting that straight into the computer, even the Gateway.

**A linux OS. If I want WinPE, I think I have to pay again.

In addition, I have the original XP CD that I bought, and since XP will
probably never be back on the old computer again, aiui, the license
should transfer to either of the other computers. I figured the Dell
would be easier, but transferring the license might not be needed
because both the Dell and the Gateway have their own stickers on the
boxes. So won't they use their own sticker Product Keys with no
complaint??

Yesterday I dl'd SP3, for XP, straight from MS, and their webpage urged
me not to do it, saying the easier method is to install XP less than SP3
and let Automatic Updates do SP3. If the page is current and that's
still true, that's good to hear, and a reason to load BOTH computers
with XP, even if I only use one. I can always upgrade later.

Boy do I want to get out of Vista. Although I'm getting used to
avoiding the problem areas, sort of like elephants in Angola have
learned to avoid the land mines.

If you're taking the C: drive from a Dell and moving it to another Dell...

1) The Dell has a royalty OEM OS on it (Dell pays a royalty fee).
2) The OS is activated by finding a "Dell" SLIC table in the BIOS.
3) As long as the OS senses the proper SLIC table, as far as I know
it is happy. That's why the Dell C: drive can move from one
Dell to another (assuming at least one storage driver is available
so it can boot).

If you have an OS installed in some other way, perhaps it won't be quite
as happy. That's where the 72 hour response, or the "lockup" cases
come in.

1) If you have Retail WinXP (the most expensive kind), it can be
moved from PC to PC. You could do a clean install and be
assured the COA sticker license key would work. That will work
as long as you're only using one copy of the OS.

2) System Builder OEM WinXP (less expensive), is installed on
the one and only motherboard. It's not supposed to be transferable,
although you can use some flavor of phone activation and if necessary,
explain the previous motherboard "died" and this is a replacement.
The frequency of making these phone activations, affects how
you're treated. Maybe having your motherboard "die once a year",
is not pushing things too far. Don't phone up every day, moving
your System Builder OS to other hardware, as eventually the key
will get flagged.

3) The Dell box comes with a COA on it too. But that is a second, separate
license key, to be used if you've lost the hard drive for the Dell and
no longer have the Dell OS. You use a regular installer CD of matching
flavor (WinXP Pro to replace WinXP Pro) and then you can install using that
key. I did that for my laptop, and had to use phone activation for the
sticker license key to activate. It doesn't use the BIOS SLIC in that
case.

The Dell box only comes with rights to use one key at a time.
The generic key (SLIC activated) would normally work, whereas
the COA sticker is for emergencies where you ended up installing
from a WinXP CD. The COA sticker key is not intended to make a
"transferable" key you could use on, say, a Gateway box. Both
keys really belong to the Dell box.

I'm hoping that a Dell box to Dell box transfer will be
mostly free of activation issues. And the only issue you
will have to work out, is making sure a storage driver
is shared in common by both machines. Or some sort of
storage interface is present, that a driver for it
will already be available.

I did most of my storage driver and "bounce" experiments
with my Win2K install. It wouldn't have been nearly
as much fun trying that stuff while dealing with
activation issues (WinXP) at the same time.

With Win2K, one of the transfer techniques was to delete
the ENUM tree (which contains all the hardware enumerations),
and that causes the OS to re-install all the drivers. Assuming
the drivers previously existed, and they can reinstall themselves.
Because there was no activation with Win2K, it meant you could
concentrate on just getting the new hardware discovered and
squared away. There were also available "boot profiles", and
I used those too. Those are intended to allow the OS to deal
with situations where it is "docked" or plugged into a
docking station. The docking station presents some different
hardware chips. By defining a second profile, you could boot
the OS to suit a number of hardware configurations. I still
have my Win2K setup, and it has four profiles in it, and the
other three are for motherboard upgrades long gone. WinXP also has
hardware profiles, but they don't work the same way, and
would not be recommended for any purpose. That's because
you can only "clone" an existing profile, which makes
a less desirable starting point for a hardware profile.
With Win2K, a new profile started "empty", and was just
as good and effective as deleting an ENUM tree.

[ The above description applies to Win7 or older. Win8 and
Win10 have a newer scheme for BIOS-based activation. ]

Paul

On Wed, 07 Oct 2015 02:09:14 -0400, micky
wrote:

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:37:17
-0400, wrote:

On Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:02:09 -0400, micky
wrote:


That a good idea, and I might well do that, but I still want to know how
to prepare a set of drivers for a given computer. This isn't the only
occaions when I might need that.

So, if I run the .exe files,it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32 or maybe someplace else. How do I extract them to a
place where I can easily find them, and they won't be installed in my
current computer, with which they have no relationship?

This .EXE might be a self extracting zip. If so something like winrar
will crack it open for you.

Wow. PowerDesk 8 has an unzipper that I usually use, and since it
didnt' offer to unzip this, I thought it wouldn't. But winrar extracted
all but 2 of them, plus one is said was corrupt. But I had a CD I made
last year and it had a better copy of the bad one.

However there was a lot more more than dll files in them. There was
setup.exe, cab files, etc. etc!!. I should have expected that. You'd
think I'd never installed drivers before. I think I'm part way there.

I extract all of the files, put them on one directory on a thumb drive
and let windoze figure out which one it wants to use.


I'll keep reading. For other reasons I went through my Amazon
archives and saw that I paid $45 for Paragon and 25 for Acronis about 3
years ago. Anything over 5 is real money. They'd better work,
eventually.

That is what I did with the driver Paul was talking about for my X200
problem. It came down as an EXE too.

I'll reread what Paul said. That post was a mouthful and I'm still
digesting it. Thanks, Paul.

BTW, Good Guy, I also have another, possibly better, Gateway computer,
that I might decide to load my system onto. I chose the Dell, because
I have a Dell Reinstall XP CD, but last I looked, Ebay has the same
thing for the Gateway for 10 dollars, and aiui, the Dell or an HP CD
that I have might work also. Of course depending on my reading of
the manuals for moving to other hardware, it might be that no prior OS
is needed. It says iiuc in one case something about starting with
their CD, that I paid for**, using it to modify the backup file and
putting that straight into the computer, even the Gateway.


Just about any disk will get you going. I think the Dell disk may have
a better selection of drivers for various Dell machines and HP for HP
but I still usually end up having to load a few.


In addition, I have the original XP CD that I bought, and since XP will
probably never be back on the old computer again, aiui, the license
should transfer to either of the other computers. I figured the Dell
would be easier, but transferring the license might not be needed
because both the Dell and the Gateway have their own stickers on the
boxes. So won't they use their own sticker Product Keys with no
complaint??


These days microsoft does not seem to be concerned with which AP
system is on what machine. I even have the same numbers running on a
couple of machines. It has become more like W/98 in that regard

Yesterday I dl'd SP3, for XP, straight from MS, and their webpage urged
me not to do it, saying the easier method is to install XP less than SP3
and let Automatic Updates do SP3. If the page is current and that's
still true, that's good to hear, and a reason to load BOTH computers
with XP, even if I only use one. I can always upgrade later.

The sequence I use is load an SP2 disk (Dell or HP) then run the SP3
upgrade, then get the 100+updates from MS

On Wed, 07 Oct 2015 02:51:59 -0400, Paul wrote:

I did most of my storage driver and "bounce" experiments
with my Win2K install. It wouldn't have been nearly
as much fun trying that stuff while dealing with
activation issues (WinXP) at the same time.


I think that when MS turned off support for XP they also turned off
that server that used to make sure you were running the right key on
the right machine. If it gets through that original "enter your key"
on install. the online authentication seems to go through.
After that it says I am "genuine" for getting things like player 11

I even did one the other day with a number on a sticker that said it
was void. (new sticker attached) I couldn't read the new one.

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Wed, 07 Oct 2015 10:51:17
-0400, wrote:

On Wed, 07 Oct 2015 02:09:14 -0400, micky
wrote:

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:37:17
-0400, wrote:

On Tue, 06 Oct 2015 23:02:09 -0400, micky
wrote:


That a good idea, and I might well do that, but I still want to know how
to prepare a set of drivers for a given computer. This isn't the only
occaions when I might need that.

So, if I run the .exe files,it will install the drivers in
\windows\system32 or maybe someplace else. How do I extract them to a
place where I can easily find them, and they won't be installed in my
current computer, with which they have no relationship?

This .EXE might be a self extracting zip. If so something like winrar
will crack it open for you.

Wow. PowerDesk 8 has an unzipper that I usually use, and since it
didnt' offer to unzip this, I thought it wouldn't. But winrar extracted
all but 2 of them, plus one is said was corrupt. But I had a CD I made
last year and it had a better copy of the bad one.

However there was a lot more more than dll files in them. There was
setup.exe, cab files, etc. etc!!. I should have expected that. You'd
think I'd never installed drivers before. I think I'm part way there.

I extract all of the files, put them on one directory on a thumb drive
and let windoze figure out which one it wants to use.


I'll keep reading. For other reasons I went through my Amazon
archives and saw that I paid $45 for Paragon and 25 for Acronis about 3
years ago. Anything over 5 is real money. They'd better work,
eventually.

That is what I did with the driver Paul was talking about for my X200
problem. It came down as an EXE too.

I'll reread what Paul said. That post was a mouthful and I'm still
digesting it. Thanks, Paul.

BTW, Good Guy, I also have another, possibly better, Gateway computer,
that I might decide to load my system onto. I chose the Dell, because
I have a Dell Reinstall XP CD, but last I looked, Ebay has the same
thing for the Gateway for 10 dollars, and aiui, the Dell or an HP CD
that I have might work also. Of course depending on my reading of
the manuals for moving to other hardware, it might be that no prior OS
is needed. It says iiuc in one case something about starting with
their CD, that I paid for**, using it to modify the backup file and
putting that straight into the computer, even the Gateway.


Just about any disk will get you going. I think the Dell disk may have
a better selection of drivers for various Dell machines and HP for HP
but I still usually end up having to load a few.


In addition, I have the original XP CD that I bought, and since XP will
probably never be back on the old computer again, aiui, the license
should transfer to either of the other computers. I figured the Dell
would be easier, but transferring the license might not be needed
because both the Dell and the Gateway have their own stickers on the
boxes. So won't they use their own sticker Product Keys with no
complaint??


These days microsoft does not seem to be concerned with which AP
system is on what machine. I even have the same numbers running on a
couple of machines. It has become more like W/98 in that regard

Yesterday I dl'd SP3, for XP, straight from MS, and their webpage urged
me not to do it, saying the easier method is to install XP less than SP3
and let Automatic Updates do SP3. If the page is current and that's
still true, that's good to hear, and a reason to load BOTH computers
with XP, even if I only use one. I can always upgrade later.

The sequence I use is load an SP2 disk (Dell or HP) then run the SP3
upgrade, then get the 100+updates from MS

Thanks for all of this. It's a big help.