Remove all drivers in WinXP - any idea?

[would_like_to_know]

Here is a question I am wondering about. Sometimes it would be desirable to move a hard drive to a new system (motherboard, video, etc), but keep the old OS intact.

Something like Linux would just re-detect the hardware, and will be good to go.

With WinXP, wiping all the drivers such that they are re-detected ain't easy, one can do it one by one in "Device Manager", but that is not so much fun. It be nice to have some kind of a registry key that would do the same, so that you reboot and the system is naked, and starts to re-detect all the hardware that there is.

Alternatively, one could do a reinstall on top of the old OS, but this is not without problems, so it would certainly be easier just to re-detect the new hardware.

Any ideas on the smoothest way to transfer the OS to new hardware with easy re-detection?

[Doom9]

well.. you could uninstall all drivers, then run sysprep and make an image of the old system, then put that on the new system. If you run sysprep properly, windows will then perform a new hardware detection upon startup.
However, it is always preferable to start with a new install when moving to new hardware. You can only change so much hardware until Windows gets into trouble (I've even swapped out the mainboard once.. even that worked) and even XP gets slow at some point and a reinstall is the only way to get back on track.

[Shinigami-Sama]

use the msi tools to backup your profile
make an Nlite XP disc with all the drivers and updates
reinstall
move your profile back over
reinstall your apps
once thats done you could make an image of your partition and just drop it back on
you could use some 3rd party tools like partition magic(which I dont like)
or acronis (which I do like and is very very nice)
hit up a live CD and use dd to pipe it into an iso, could compress it too if you wanted

[Teldin]

If disk space is not an issue and your system is running fine (have no desire to do a fresh install of XP) then my recommendation is to do these two things:
First - downgrade your HAL
this is the primary reason you will get a BSOD. read here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283
Second - install the network drivers for the new system before you move your drive.
Then just let XP find the devices and you can d/l the drivers for them.

[would_like_to_know]

Thanks for all the answers! It seems like there is no a particularly quick way for this if one gets a BSOD upon a fresh reboot. I think I'll stick then with installing the same OS on top of the old one ("upgrading"). With that, 40 minutes of semi-brain dead activity, and you are good to go.

"Fix a broken installation" is less useful, it seems to screw up more programs that were already installed compared to an "upgrade". Methinks MS is too much into its one-sided licensing to allow for easy disk swaps ...

[Shinigami-Sama]

Thanks for all the answers! It seems like there is no a particularly quick way for this if one gets a BSOD upon a fresh reboot. I think I'll stick then with installing the same OS on top of the old one ("upgrading"). With that, 40 minutes of semi-brain dead activity, and you are good to go.

"Fix a broken installation" is less useful, it seems to screw up more programs that were already installed compared to an "upgrade". Methinks MS is too much into its one-sided licensing to allow for easy disk swaps ...

I"ve swapped plenty
if it cries at you phone them, I've reactive about 4 keys that way, you might have to phone twice to get a phone jockie that will do it for you

also
moving it may break it more than you think
I've had old drivers create funky conflicts even after I install the new ones...

[Dr.Khron]

I have to agree completely with Doom9 on this one.

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Call me paranoid, but I like to be SURE.

If you have a fast disk subsytem and a fast CD/DVD drive, a full reinstall really won't take that long. Not much longer then any of the above methods, anyway.

[foxyshadis]

Any particular reason to remove drivers? I've never had any problem with inactive drivers conflicting with something, except newer versions of ATI video drivers with old cards. I bet nforce might be the same. (That HAL problem just got me today, wish I'd known about it before.)

Want to do it the hard way, all kernel & user drivers are in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services. Anything with .sys is a driver, though they can have any extension.

[would_like_to_know]

Any particular reason to remove drivers? I've never had any problem with inactive drivers conflicting with something, except newer versions of ATI video drivers with old cards. I bet nforce might be the same. (That HAL problem just got me today, wish I'd known about it before.)

Want to do it the hard way, all kernel & user drivers are in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services. Anything with .sys is a driver, though they can have any extension.

Removing all drivers is only a secondary goal, the first goal is not to get a BSOD upon a reboot! If one can boot into a WinXP system successfully after a swap, then it is 90% of the success. I do not believe that "dead" drivers do anything as files sitting on your drive, unless they are still active in "Device Manager".

Now, how do I nuke all the stuff in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services in one quick move, and have it reboot successfully ? Anybody wants to experiment out there and report it back ? :-)

Could one swap HAL itself in that way, just edit it in the registry? :)

I believe that a relatively painless swap should in principle be possible, yet in practice it is black magic ...

XP (corporate) will still be good to use on all the hardware of the last 5-10 years, so this craft has plenty of future ! :)

[foxyshadis]

You swap the hal by replacing the actual file, not the registry entries. Here's a list (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/237556). Don't worry about the rest unless you're moving from single to multit cpu or vice versa.

Wipe ALL the services and you have a freshly hosed XP all ready for a reinstall. :p

[Ar3d]

The better things to do is to back all necessary file into another hard drive. as well all drivers can back-up to...