imaging windows ?

[Woomera]

ok dont just go and shoot me with "search before send".

and sorry if this belonged to unattended section but didnt know if thats the best to put.

i want to upgrade my mainboard and cpu but i want my windows with all settings and applications to be remained safe.ive read some stuff about sysprep in the forum and know how to work with it but will the mini setup install the neccessary hardware drivers?

simply tell me how can i keep my windows?

thanks alot.

Edited November 28, 2005 by fatalwoomera

[InTheWayBoy]

In your case it may be easier to change your IDE controller driver to a standard one, and then do the swap out. After your computer loads up then you can install the new boards IDE drivers and you're cooking with grease...

You could also do an in-place upgrade, which will reinstall most of windows but SHOULD keep all your settings and applications in tact. Should is a keyword here...it doesn't always work out that way.

And yes, Sysprep will work for you too. When you sysprep something it strips most of the hardware info from the registry, leaving the mini-setup to find all the hardware again. Should it find a piece of hardware that it's not capable of installing, it will put it in device manager as an unknown device. Once the mini-setup is done you can then install any remaining drivers. You can also, if you want to invest the time, script sysprep to locate drivers for your hardware. You must provide the drivers and configure the script. In my opinion, that's too much time to waste when any of the previous suggestion work just as well, and much faster.

Good luck!