Moving ANY Vista from one machine to another.

I had my own motherboard start playing up on a machine I use with Vista Business on it. I upgraded it from XP Pro Feb 2007. When it started playing up I changed the motherboard and CPU and thought that I would have to do a repair install, then install motherboard drivers and possibly have to activate all over again the same as you do with XP in this situation. Nope. I could NOT do a repair install on it and in fact had to lose the whole thing and install fresh! I have my own image backup using True Image 10 Home version so can get data back from there but it isnt the ideal setup. What happens, in the future, when a business with Vista has the motherboard go bang? They have to lose everything the way I did and start again? Talk about a BIG problem for Microsoft if so.

So, after I quietened down I thought - no it must just be my mistake. I looked around and I cannot prove I was wrong.

If there is a way to repair install so you can move everything to a new machine the same as you could for XP, can someone let me know please? I dont think you CAN do it but would Microsoft be so STUPID as to anger business like this?

Hi Vistalover,

My recommendation is to reinstall Vista when replacing your motherboard. This advice also applies to other operating systems. This is because of the differences in system hardware architecture, and also to prevent conflicts between different versions of drivers. Your applications can be restored from the original install disks, and the data itself can be restored from your backups. I recommend that you use an external hard disk for these. I notice that you performed an upgrade from XP to Vista. If so, that could be part of the problem. Although Microsoft says that this should cause little or no problems, I always recommend that an operating system should be clean installed. For details, please refer to the following tutorial by Shawn. Should you wish to try the repair installation option, the second link is to a tutorial on that topic, again by Shawn.
Dwarf

Clean Install From Upgrade Vista

Repair Install For Vista

i changed a motherboard twice under windows xp and that went fine by first removing all drivers. the hal detects the new motherboard components and starts asking for drivers. i have no experience with this on vista, but i assume vista also does a hardware scan on each reboot and has a hal just like xp does.

you also might have a look at acronis true image echo workstation extended with the acronis universal restore option. the specs say vista x86 and x64 versions are supported.

Thanks for that info but to be honest, it isnt right so far as W2K and XP have been in the past. It was dead easy to move to another machine (via image software or even just moving the C drive itself) and then doing a repair install, install new drivers and validate again if necessary. Nothing to it really excepting the time it takes to do that.
The way you have described means everything that you had and wanted are lost and have to be rebuilt. The way I did it (many times, BTW) I lost nothing and it was just the same XP working on the new machinery.

Reinstalling fresh each time is a waste of tiime for companies and can sometimes even be disastrous. That is why imaging software was good pre Vista.

With Vista it seems impossible to do it the normal way and I HAVE had to install again fresh though I kept the image backup in case I can redo it. Damned annoying because you ALWAYS lose something ona fresh install which is why it is NOT the recommended way to upgrade so far as I am concerned. I dont mean to cast aspersions on you but when you have an office full of XP machines that have just had new machinery bought for them, you dont want to spend 3 weeks fixing them when all you have is the weekend. Imaging is necessary but it appears impossible with Vista. I cant believe Microsoft have been this stupid which is why I want to know a way to do it the way I want it. Can you imagine a HUGE company in the same predicament?

Yeah but the problem is when the motherboard dies, you cant get back into Windows to do a thing before you put the installation in new working hardware. So imagine that your motherboard and CPU just blew but everything else is OK. How do you replace the motherboard, CPU (and possibly RAM) and connect the lot and have what you had before with the new machinery if you use Vista? Right now, I have to say you CANT do that because I cannot find a way to do it. I am hoping to be proven wrong but so far it looks like I wont be. I cant imagine having 50-100 machines renewed at a huge business and all Vista before the renewal and having to set them up on a weekend. With XP that was definitely possible but with Vista it isnt.

XP was easy. Just put the installation on the new hardware, do a repair install, activate if necessary and install the new drivers and that was that done in under an hour per machine. Cant do that with Vista. I even found one place saying you COULD do it pre Vista SP1 but if you have SP1 you are stuffed. Dont know if that is true or not.