Changing mobos without reinstalling Windows ME.......

[netdude]

Asus just released the Kt266 DDR board and it's getting good reviews. I think this may be the board i'm going to get when i go DDR. One question and i'm sure i'll hear alot of different opinions on this. Can i switch boards without reinstalling my OS without a problem? A few of my friends have done so and it they had zero problems. What problems could i run into? What i was thinking of doing was uninstalling my VIA drivers for my Kt133, taking the board out, popping the 266 in and of course set up my PCI cards( i would put them in the same slots)firing it up into Windows and install the VIA 266 drivers. I even read on a site where they said you can switch boards out without replacing the OS all of the time. Any ideas?

 

[NOS440]

With windows 98se I used to do this all the time. I ran the same install with 7 different motherboard over a 14 month period. All I did was whipe the device manager completely out before switching boards and then let windows redetech everything on the new board. I have not tried this with Win ME so can't tell ya how well it works at it.

 

[AndyHui]

You can probably get away with it.

Usually when you are going from one chipset to another, as long as they are from the same manufacturer and are not too different in architecture, it should be fine.

In your case, you should be able to get away without needing to do anything in particular....just change the motherboard and put your cards back in the same slot. You probably won't even need to reinstall the VIA 4-in-1 drivers.

If you do run into problems, then the easiest way to get Windows to redetect your hardware is to wipe all the current devices by going to the Registry and deleting all the entries under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum key.

 

[netdude]

Yeah that's what i thought. I was trying to logically figure out what would possibly be a problem with installing a new mobo without reinstalling Windows ME and i can't think of any. Wiping out the device drivers is a good idea, i'm not a novice so if i have to reinstall my drivers for my PCI cards no big deal, it's alot easier than installing ME again. In fact i just got off the phone with two local PC places that i deal with all of the time and they said they do it alot without a problem. Both of them said it will work and in fact it's easier to do with ME than with 98 or 95. They said ME will recognize the new board and all i would have to do is install the board drivers at that time and i'm done. Cool, worse comes to worse if it get's messed up(which it most likely won't) i reinstall my OS but i hopefully it won't lead to that.