Hi,
I took a quick look and didn't see this, so here goes. This allows you to upgrade and save most of your settings. If you want to do a fresh install, forget this....
1. Go to your new MB's web site and download the latest drivers and updates. Put them on a non system volume e.g. drive e on my box.
2. Clean up your existing file system on the old mobo and BACKUP your system drive however you do it. I used Acronis.
3. Be sure you have a legal copy of the original installation CD; you will need it and its product key to finish.
4. Install the new motherboard and CPU after shutting down, of course. Don't change anything else at this point.
5. Restart when the new mobo is properly installed, but don't allow it to reboot, reset, power off, ctl-alt-del, whatever.
6. Enter the bios setup and reconfig for your new motherboard and all other devices like hard drives; don't do anything fancy like overclocking at this point.
7. While you are still in the bios setup area, insert your installation CD in your CD or DVD drive, and select boot options that will make your computer boot from it.
8. Boot from the CD and wait for the first installation screen to appear.
9. Press enter as if to install; do not select "R" for repair with the recovery console. If you do select "R" on this screen, use your reset button to restart and repeat the process until you get it right.
10. You will get another installation screen with the existing installation(s) listed in a box on the bottom half of the screen.
11. Highlight the installation you want to upgrade and press "R" to repair it.
12. This in fact reinstalls XP Pro retaining most of your settings.
13. Enter the product key and other information as necessary and your system will be reinstalled.
14. You will have to activate; forget all the tricky ways of bypassing it, just go ahead and do it. It's reasonably fast by phone, especially if you can use the toll free number.
15. When activation is complete, you can log in and load the updated drivers you downloaded for the new system.
16. Apply the service packs you need or want; I installed SP2 which contains SP1.
17. Go to windows update; it will help you with some device drivers as well as the myriad of "security" updates.
18. From then on it's allowing plug and play to find devices and resetting certain things like display resolution plus I had to reinstall my virus checker.
19. You may want to remove the "$updates$" that windows installer and updater has left under %systemroot%\ as well as the entire \service pack\i386. Go for it; you obviously can retrieve them from somewhere and they take up space.
20. When you're finished fiddling, run a registry cleaner like "regsupreme" and you'll get a pile of supurflous keys to dump.
All in all, I kept feeling that I should have done a clean install, but think carefully, especially if you have accumulated lots of appls and files.
Good Luck!
