[Pyrothrillah]

Well I just went ahead and shelled out the 80 bucks for the 64bit Vista.

[philbar71]

you will be happy you got vista instead

[SparkMonkeyHellion]

Originally Posted by philbar71

you will be happy you got vista instead

Bleh. I would have taken this event as a sign from the gods to switch to something new altogether!

I myself am going to try out Ubuntu this weekend!

[Pyrothrillah]

Yeah it's not too bad, It's different thats for sure. No reason to give bad ratings over.

[forrestcupp]

Originally Posted by SparkMonkeyHellion

Bleh. I would have taken this event as a sign from the gods to switch to something new altogether!

I myself am going to try out Ubuntu this weekend!

If you have good compatible hardware and you can handle not being completely compatible with Windows software, you won't be sorry.

[SparkMonkeyHellion]

Originally Posted by forrestcupp

If you have good compatible hardware and you can handle not being completely compatible with Windows software, you won't be sorry.

haha, I'm amphibious - I use OSX and XP daily so I'm used to different req's and stuff. I figure why not add Linux on there and get the Uber Trinity.

[Pyrothrillah]

I've never tried Linux. Since most everything is compatible with Windows I normally just stick with that.

[Jayce]

Originally Posted by SparkMonkeyHellion

You can use Norton Ghost (or something similar, I think there are Open Source imaging apps) to copy your old PC and then just dump it on the new one.

I've used Ghost at both of my most recent IT jobs and it's brilliant - you only have to do a typical XP install once and then you "Ghost" your ready machine - in fact I named our corporate ghost image with all our software pre-installed as "HotNReady", you just drop the image on a machine which only takes like 5 minutes and then you join it to the domain, and you've got a new machine ready to go in 10 minutes flat (that includes the dozen applications we use)

As Mak said, this would be a licensing violation unless you had a mass volume license like corporations and schools have. But speaking on a strictly "functionality" standpoint, it STILL wouldn't work unless all of the hardware in the computer is identical. I.E., if old PC is a Dell Optiplex GX150, where the new PC is an HP dc5850, I'll bet my car that you would get a BSOD upon firing up the newly imaged computer.

[SparkMonkeyHellion]

As Mak said, this would be a licensing violation unless you had a mass volume license like corporations and schools have. But speaking on a strictly "functionality" standpoint, it STILL wouldn't work unless all of the hardware in the computer is identical. I.E., if old PC is a Dell Optiplex GX150, where the new PC is an HP dc5850, I'll bet my car that you would get a BSOD upon firing up the newly imaged computer.

Assuming that the user has an appropriate license, it probably would work but you'd just need a bunch of drivers.

Or if he got a BSOD then all you'd have to do is put in the XP disc and act like you're doing a fresh install and once it sees an XP install in the partition, just choose "Repair" instead of "Install" - that usually clears up whatever the conflict is.

EDIT: In terms of the legality, I would recommend that he calls Microsoft and explain that he's just trying to upgrade a machine, they will likely give him a brand new Key - I have done this on occasion.

[Pyrothrillah]

[QUOTE=EDIT: In terms of the legality, I would recommend that he calls Microsoft and explain that he's just trying to upgrade a machine, they will likely give him a brand new Key - I have done this on occasion.[/QUOTE]

How would that work when it says while trying to start with an Upgrade that you NEED the full version?