Transferring programs to new hard drive... can this be done?

oregon

Active Member
I am upgrading soon, and I have an old 40GB IDE hard drive running windows 2000. I want to get rid of it. However, it has lots of programs installed on it that I paid for, such as nero, microsoft office, etc. Is there any way to install vista on a new SATA drive, then somehow transfer these programs? If not, could I somehow install vista on a new drive, then just keep this as a secondary drive with my programs?
 
First off the programs you have installed would likely fail to run on Vista or maybe even XP being a newer version of Windows. If you are planning to add Vista onto the system along with adding a new drive you would simply unplug the 40gb when going to install Vista on a new sata model.

You would then have to change the boot order for choosing the other version or see if your bios has a boot device menu option when first starting the system. A dual boot of Vista with 2000 would require planning out a drive by splitting into two primary partitions and installing 2000 to the second partition first. Vista wants the first one and will go after an ide drive for copying boot files and creating a new boot folder if the 40gb is plugged in.

The thing to note in a dual boot situation with Vista is that you lose the system restore feature in Vista. That's the one drawback in dual boot setup. But you would simply set the 40gb as the default drive in the boot order and set either 2000 or Vista as the default OS to load.

One other thing to note is not starting other threads on the same question or problem.
 
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The thing to note in a dual boot situation with Vista is that you lose the system restore feature in Vista.

I am looking to do a dual boot with Windows XP and Ubuntu 7.1. Would I also lose the ability to do system restore in Windows XP if I choose to dual boot?
 
Linux is an older OS based on UNIX and has no direct effect on Windows. The loss of the system restore feature is only seen in Vista when dual booting with an older version of Windows like XP, 2000, ME, 98 there. This is due to Vista automatically adding the older version into it's own boot configuration while ubuntu or another distro would see a manual boot configuration along with the use of a Grub or Lilo boot loader.
 
One other thing to note is not starting other threads on the same question or problem.

Sorry, won't do it again. Another question though, would windows 2000 be able to run all new hardware (except the current drive its on)?
 
I am upgrading soon, and I have an old 40GB IDE hard drive running windows 2000. I want to get rid of it. However, it has lots of programs installed on it that I paid for, such as nero, microsoft office, etc. Is there any way to install vista on a new SATA drive, then somehow transfer these programs? If not, could I somehow install vista on a new drive, then just keep this as a secondary drive with my programs?

No, you must reinstall them and half of them probably won't even run in vista.
 
When looking at the newer hardwares out you first have to look over what drivers/softwares are provided and the versions of Windows that are supported. At this time 2000 is waning as far as support is concerned from XP having had it's long run before the new verion came out.

The curious thing about Vista is that some old games that came out some 6-7yrs. ago will easily install and run on Vista while some from 2005 won't even install. For desktop programs it's common to see the need for newer versions for the next version of Windows that comes out. This is many held off upgrading to XP originally having to lose 9X-ME, NT, 2000 apps and being required to start fresh all over again.
 
You may find that with XP being on a separate drive as well. Once you install Vista last to see any previous version added into the new boot loader Vista takes control to some extent a second drive by placing a boot folder there you can't delete even with Vista later removed.

That was seen here when RC1 was dual booted with XP at the time. Later even when the Home Premium was installed separately you still couldn't delete that folder since it saw the acess denied error. I had to wipe the drive entirely to see XP Pro go on the drive still in the old build to see that gone. On the same drive it would appear XP and Vista alike store the restore points in the same places where XP looks for it's own.
 
The access denied message is usually because you don't have the correct ntfs permissions to access it. There are workarounds for that also :)
 
One way was to boot up with a live Linux distro to remove the folder once Vista was reinstalled as a stand alone OS. The file in the sub folder and that was removed while the main folder persisted.

The drive had to be wiped anyways to see a clean install of XP Pro for the new owner. On the new build the boot folder is seen on the same drive that Vista Home Premium resides on. The beta version only saw one sub folder with a single file in that. Now take a look at how many are seen with the finished version installed. http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/8456/vistabootfolderkl1.jpg
 
This was seen when first dual booting the beta version along with XP Home at the time. The initial installation of Vista Home Premium was also a dual boot later multiple boot configuration with XP Pro added in. All boot information was on the first of two ides drives while XP Pro set as the default version was on the first sata.

That was an interesting mix on the old case there as well as having Mandriva and the attempt at Solaris 10 on the Vista drive. You can also take ownership by simply choosing that option once added into the right click menu when right clicking on the file or folder. The TakeOwnership.reg file is a free registry mod that adds that option as seen at http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/
 
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