You will not be able to use WinXP for more than 30 days without registering it. The easiest way is to do it via an internet connection. In that case it is unfortunately entirely possible that Microsoft gives you grief if you have installed (and registered) your copy of WinXP on an entirely different machine before (WinXP's copy protection is designed to allow "upgrades" to your machine but is supposed to find out if you install on an entirely different machine).

If you don't want to connect to the internet you will have to register by phone. This means that you are likely to talk to a human being (probably somewhere in India ... :D ) that will allow you to register the copy anyway if you explain the background. No guarantees, but a good chance. After all, this protection scheme is in place to reduce "casual piracy" (meaning you installing the same copy on more than one machine) but not to screw loyal customers.

If all of that fails you could consider "morphing" your machine into the new one. Replace piece by piece and boot in between so that all the changes each time are within the "tolerated" range of change to a system. Upgrading the MoBo and CPU for example is not a problem.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

MisterBlue.

... and on your second question:
I believe you can download the SP1 (and a whole shitload of smaller updates if you care) on another computer and put them on a CD-R (it's huge 40MB or so).
I personally think that the SP1 is important (have MS ever gotten anything right the first time? :D ) but I don't have hard data to back it up.

MisterBlue.

Well, The copy of XP I have was installed and registered on my home PC. Now, I want to install it on my audio PC as well. Will this be a problem if I am registering it to the same name. What if my PC crashed and I had to clean out the drive? Microsoft would not allow me to use the software again??? Thats bull shit! :mad:

Thanks,
Shane

Shane, there's a difference between a crash and trying to run one copy of the OS on two machines simultaneously - and yes, Micro-Slop expects you to buy another copy of XP if you want to run a second PC.

If you check out pricewatch.com, you can usually get OEM versions of OS's thrown in for cheap when buying drives, MoBo's, etc - that's the cheapest way if you're building a machine anyway... Steve

MicroSoft has their "security" set to a balance when it comes to loading XP. They have it set so that you can replace up to four pieces of hardware every three months. That's the max you can do without problems. However, if you replace more than that, or trash your old computer completely and build a new one, you can call MicroSoft and they will make it all okay for you. They are very cool about the call-in permissions, rarely turning anyone away except in extreme cases. They call this part of their "security plan" ... BS ... it's fukking greed. (Hmmm, I see RO is now editing)

As far as updates and service packs ... Microsoft is very crafty, yet very stupid at the same time. Here's why:

There are about 2 dozen SP1 updates which you must download from the MS Downloads site and install (which are NOT included in "THE" SP1 nor SP1a packs), BEFORE you install "THE" SP1 or SP1a. Microsoft does not even include most of these SP1 updates in it's "Windows Update" scam. Furthermore, once you have installed "THE" SP1 or SP1a, XP will no longer let you install any of those individual SP1 updates, even though THEY AREN'T INCLUDED IN SP1 AND/OR SP1a !!!

Then, what MicroSoft DOES include in their Windows Update scam is a bunch of crap that most common people DO NOT NEED! So, a lot of people (who trust that what Microsoft Update says they need, they DO need) end up with even more useless crap than they already got (courtesy of Bill Gates and his cronies) when they installed XP initially!

Do you really need SP1? If anything, you should be getting RID of a lot of the crap that COMES with XP, such as Windows Messenger, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, address book, paint, games, accessibility, movie maker, help, tours, samples, and whatever else you can find that you'll never use for a DAW. Some stuff is easier to remove than others, and some things you may only want to remove to a certain degree (because some files are embedded, and may have associations other than the one you're removing).

Since I'm on a roll (rambling), I'd like to comment more about GREED (which is a synonym for Bill Gates). He loves to embed things deeply into his OS so that he can wring every penny out of every OS CD he sells (or that is HACKED, for that matter!). Everything that he embeds in XP is there because it generates him more money, either through advertising, association, or information. He's proven that he's a money-hungry bastard who will stop at NOTHING, and his plans for the future are even more bleak! IMO, he's the Cyber-Antichrist. His plans for the future include taking away our freedom, our privacy, and even more of our money.

MY advice:

Head down to the RO Linux forum, learn about Linux, become involved, get yourself a few different distributions of Linux (which can be gotten free of charge, LEGALLY), and help in the movement that will eventually become the most widely-used Operating System, for regular users as well as specialty users (including DAWs). No, it isn't "ready for prime time" ... yet ... but the more people who become involved NOW, the faster it will become what it inevitably is going to be.

Sorry for the rant ... NOT.

:c:

Sos

You still rambling and ranting I see :D

If you manage, somehow, to get the corporate version of XP you needn't worry about registering as that version doesn't require that. Good luck though as you need to be a company with at least 250 computers to get it!

Let's hope the next MS OS is not like this!

Opus :D

XP registration by phone is really easy and painless. You will talk to a computer not a person. You will be instructed to type a very long alphanumeric number into your computer, but the number is broken into groups of 3 digits or letters.

It doesn't hurt a bit. I promise

OK, maybe I'm completely ignorant on this one, so if I am, blow this out of the water right away. I just lost my mobo on my old PIII 450 machine and built a new box from a barebones kit. When I first got everything put together, just to make sure I hadn't lost any data from my old C:/, I threw it in the new box with the jumper set as master and fired it up. Of course, the new box tried to boot off this drive (win98), but had issues with the new hardware. But the fact that it did try to boot off the drive told me all was good, and I now have that drive tucked in as the secondary IDE slave and all the data's there, and I'm running XP Pro and things are FLYING. I love this box. Obviously I'm able to move data around freely between all 3 of my hard drives.

All that just to say that this thread makes me wonder if he might be able to simply throw a clean hard drive set to slave in his networked box, copy the C:/ volume onto the clean drive, take that drive out, reset the jumper, and throw it in the new box as the new system drive. Would that allow the same install of XP to run on both boxes? Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but I'd give it a shot.

Well, you can't just simply copy a windows folder from one drive to the next as there are certain factors in the old installation that will giveyou problems with the new system.

When an OS is installed it looks and takes notes about your BIOS, hardware and any other factors.

You can try and do a repair installation but there will always be some hidden problem waiting to jump out and bite you.

If you were just simply replacing a hard drive it would be best to just ghost the old drive to the new drive and all will be well!

Opus :D

Thanks Opus. Makes sense. I know just enough about 'puters to really f*ck something up while thinking I know what I'm doing.

Might I suggest, as many others have before, to check out Opus' tweaks for an XP audio machine. As I type this I'm tweaking this box and am noticing significant improvement in performance, and I'm not even halfway done yet. Thanks for the useful info.

No problem..in fact I really need to update the guide and produce some other useful information on another document.

Soon..not sure exactly when, but maybe after my honeymoon in September!

Opus :D