Cloning WinXP onto new hardware - workable?

[Delta]

At work we have a PC running a proprietary datalogging and display application (it reads data from our SCADA system). We are looking to replace it with new hardware, but the vendor will only sell a complete "system" (PC and software + new licence) to us, and are asking stupid money (five figures USD).  The PC doesn't just display numbers and pretty charts for the boss; it also streams live data via RS-232 to various 3rd party contractors, some of whom are operation critical.

I propose buying a new PC and cloning the HDDs over, but will Windows play nicely such a plan?  Will Windows be unhappy with new hardware from a drivers perspective?  Does Windows licencing from that era detect that it is running on different hardware?

The PC is a Dell OptiPlex 790. with an i5-2400 CPU at 3.1GHz.  It has 4GB RAM (across two sticks).
Running 32-bit Windows XP Profesional v2002 SP3.  (With PAE enabled)
Has two 250GB spinning HDDs.  (Disk0 with two partitions C for the OS, D for recovery, Disk1 single partiion E: for the database).

Will I be able to find new hardware close enough to the old machine to get the thing to run, or is this a hiding to nothing?

[soldar]

The short answer is "yes", Windows XP will detect change in hardware.  Why do you want to change the hardware?

I am still running Win XP Pro SP3 on a number of machines and have reinstalled the OP not too long ago. It is still possible but getting more and more difficult.

There might be ways to get around problems but if this is a professional setting where you depend on the OEM you probably don't want to mess too  much with things.

Again, the question is why do you want to do this change if everything is running fine.  Depending on the answer you might want to proceed in different directions.

[stevelup]

As long as it will boot, you should be able to get it going on the new hardware, but that's a big if...

The key thing is that the hard drive controller is the same (or at least compatible).

But, as soldar says, why do this? That machine will probably outlive you! Why not just clone the drives onto new ones, give it a good clean, and leave it alone.

[RoGeorge]

Very unlikely.

It might be possible with some tinkering and careful planing, but simply plugging the disks in a new PC won't do it.  I did that many times at home (plugging the old WinXP HDD into a new motherboard) and never worked.  Mostly, that gave a blue screen.

You need to take into account the following:
- conectivity (e.g. nowadays is hard to find a motherboard with a serial port onboard)
- BIOS ---> UEFI
- MBR ---> MPT
- Single core -> Multi core
- Drivers
- Any license keys for you SCADA programs (some license keys are hardware locked, and can read unique IDs like HDD ID, Proc ID, Bios ID) etc.
- Risk management (e.g. how critical that SCADA system is, how much time do you get, if any, to test the new system, will they sign an acceptance test for such a hack, is it legal to transfer the license)

I worked for the power grid, and implemented a few (tens of) SCADA systems.  Here, even if it were possible to just transfer the disks, such a solution won't be accepted.

[soldar]

Also, Win XP behaves differently depending on the sales channel and product ID. 

https://www.mydigitallife.net/how-to-change-windows-xp-version-between-retail-oem-and-volume-license-channel/

You can use Everest or similar program to find out what version, serial number etc.

I have generally been successful with this type of messing but I should also say many times it has not been easy and has required many hours.

If this is a product which requires some kind of support or maintenance by the OEM I think it would not be wise to mess with it.

If you want to experiment I would not touch the original system at all. Try to get a new system and play and experiment to your heart's content but do not put it to real use until you are satisfied it is reliable and up to the job.

Yeah, I can't see this as acceptable in a corporate professional setting. Too much liability.

[Delta]

Thanks for the replies.

To clarify, this PC is not part of the SCADA system.  The PC & its software were designed to be used as a standalone datalogging system, connected to it's own DAQs and sensor suites in the field.  However in our installation it sees our SCADA system as a virtual DAQ, and reads sensor data from that.  This PC does not control anything, and the SCADA system runs fine without it.  The live serial data streaming is the only (potentially) critical aspect to it.

As to why we want to replace it; well out of good planning I suppose.  The PC recently had it's PSU go, and we feel it would be prudent to have a new unit available as a spare, instead of trying to get a replacement sourced and installed if/when it does fail.
My plan would be to attempt to get a cloned system up and running offline, and that would then sit as a spare until needed. 
Management would never agree to spend $10000+ on a spare that might never be needed, but I might get <$1000 out of them to attempt this.

[JVR]

Management would never agree to spend $10000+ on a spare that might never be needed, but I might get <$1000 out of them to attempt this.

Got to love the beancounters. What is the real world cost if that machine is out of service for a few days? I'd like to think that will make the $10k look cheap

[soldar]

As to why we want to replace it; well out of good planning I suppose.  The PC recently had it's PSU go, and we feel it would be prudent to have a new unit available as a spare, instead of trying to get a replacement sourced and installed if/when it does fail.
My plan would be to attempt to get a cloned system up and running offline, and that would then sit as a spare until needed. 
Management would never agree to spend $10000+ on a spare that might never be needed, but I might get <$1000 out of them to attempt this.

Sounds like a very good plan to me. I would get a duplicate of exactly the same hardware. Is that what you are trying to do?

A used Dell OptiPlex 790. with an i5-2400 CPU at 3.1GHz can be had on eBay for well under $100.

[digsys]

...
If you want to experiment I would not touch the original system at all. Try to get a new system and play and experiment to your heart's content but do not put it to real use until you are satisfied it is reliable and up to the job ...

Totally agree. I have done many XP migrations and still have several PCs using it. Luckily, long ago, I saved several M/Boards / video cards and made sure all
original installs were on the same hardware. BUT, in cases where I had differing hardware - note that the hash code usually only calculates the first few digits
of the serial #s, and usually only the video / chipset etc -
First, I'd do a total clean up defrag - my fav is Tuneup Utilities, then make an Image - I use Terrabyte Imager ... then -
In some cases, I dug up old identical m/boards on www / or sometimes video cards, then only swap ONE item at a time, boot and check.
IF, on rare occasions, that didn't work, I just use a 3rd party proggie to kill the validation. Never had a failure, one way or the other :-)

[soldar]

Also, when I have needed to activate again due to any changes the activation has always succeeded. I think at this point it is not like MS are trying to stop the pirating of XP.

Last time I had to do it I remember I did it by phone. It is automated and it works easily.

Again, how this is handled depends muchly on the PID of your installation so you might want to determine that first.

[CJay]

At work we have a PC running a proprietary datalogging and display application (it reads data from our SCADA system). We are looking to replace it with new hardware, but the vendor will only sell a complete "system" (PC and software + new licence) to us, and are asking stupid money (five figures USD).  The PC doesn't just display numbers and pretty charts for the boss; it also streams live data via RS-232 to various 3rd party contractors, some of whom are operation critical.

I propose buying a new PC and cloning the HDDs over, but will Windows play nicely such a plan?  Will Windows be unhappy with new hardware from a drivers perspective?  Does Windows licencing from that era detect that it is running on different hardware?

The PC is a Dell OptiPlex 790. with an i5-2400 CPU at 3.1GHz.  It has 4GB RAM (across two sticks).
Running 32-bit Windows XP Profesional v2002 SP3.  (With PAE enabled)
Has two 250GB spinning HDDs.  (Disk0 with two partitions C for the OS, D for recovery, Disk1 single partiion E: for the database).

Will I be able to find new hardware close enough to the old machine to get the thing to run, or is this a hiding to nothing?

Simple answer ye, XP will run on new hardware but, depending on version, might want a licence key/activation, I do not know if MS will still activate XP.

The main stumbling block is that you may well find there are no XP drivers for the new hardware and it may be impossible or require a large amount of fiddling about to get it up and running properly.

If the machine is business critical, sell it to the beancounters as such, if they won't go for it then get them to put that in writing and it's on their heads when everything stops.

If you mess about fiddling the sopftware to make it run on a new machine and business stops, then it's your fault.

[digsys]

.... Last time I had to do it I remember I did it by phone. It is automated and it works easily  ...

Yup, that worked for me too

[pelule]

I activated my XP 3 weeks ago (forced due to new HW) by phone. So still possible.
/PeLuLe

[soldar]

I activated my XP 3 weeks ago (forced due to new HW) by phone. So still possible.

Not only that; you can still download all the patches and updates. I remember last time I had to do some tinkering before the updates would download and install. Something to do with needing to update the updating software first. But once I got around that it downloaded and installed everything. 

You need to be sure to have all the drivers though. Generally what I like to do is make a fresh install on a new HDD and keep the old disk with all the drivers etc. Hard disks are dirt cheap these days.

OTOH, corporate PID and serials do not require activation.

[fsr]

If the Windows XP is an OEM version (came preinstalled on the machine), you cannot legally transfer it to another machine. It's legally tied to the computer's motherboard. However, if you have downgrade rights on the new computer, that will allow you to do it. In general, professional versions of windows do have downgrade rights. Talk about this with the people doing the software license stuff in your workplace.

The problem then, is that the new computer needs to have drivers available for windows XP.

Another option could be to use virtualization, but the RS232 ports could be a problem, as some virtualization systems don't allow you to do much with them, if at all. And it opens it's own licensing can of worms (thanks Microsoft for that).

[coromonadalix]

For very old softwares i used/built an vmware machine, you install the "suplement tool pack"  create a shared folder between the host and slave machine and youre good to go.

That way youre not hardware / driver dependant of the host machine,  done this for an win 95 and 98 machine too ...   if you configure your ram and drives partition, you wont take too much place, and backup them on a usb key all 3 "vm" of them are under 4 gigs of size each.

[Delta]

Got to love the beancounters. What is the real world cost if that machine is out of service for a few days? I'd like to think that will make the $10k look cheap

3 days downtime would cost $267,000.


There's no chancing of buying second hand hardware unfortunately, so my goal is to get this running on new hardware.

Plan would be:
 shut down the running PC and image the HDD's to an external drive using a Linux laptop and USB - SATA adapter.
Burn the images to the new HDDs.
See if the new PC boots!
Potter and faff and see if I can get Windows stable.
See if the application will run!

[RoGeorge]

Just download a so called "Russian cracked version" and it will activate on any computer. Anyway you have a licence, and if MS audits your company, tell them to fuck off.

"Advice of the day" award granted!
 

[soldar]

There's no chancing of buying second hand hardware unfortunately, so my goal is to get this running on new hardware.

I think the best possible chance of success and the most economically feasible would be to buy hardware exactly like what you got.

[soldar]

Even that might not work. Windows XP will refuse to boot on different hardware, even for the same part number with different fingerprint (MAC, BIOS SN, etc.).

I have changed a lot of hardware and never had a problem provided I changed one thing at a time.  In other words, I ended pretty much with a new system  but changed gradually.

It will disguise the anti-piracy BSoD as HDD failure, and the module that triggers BSoD will be either ntfs.sys or hard drive driver.

I have never seen that happen or even heard about it happening and, as much as I may dislike MS, I doubt they would do such a thing. It sounds to me MS hate folklore.

To run Windows XP on a different hardware without a new license, piracy is the only option to my knowledge.

I disagree. One way or another all my machines are running legit copies and, in any case, I am not going to advise anyone to run pirated software in a business setting. And this for a long list of reasons which I will not expand on right now.

[nctnico]

I would get a duplicate of exactly the same hardware. Is that what you are trying to do?

A used Dell OptiPlex 790. with an i5-2400 CPU at 3.1GHz can be had on eBay for well under $100.

This is a good route to take. Dell OptiPlex machines are reliable and will run for very long (unless you stick them in a very hot place). The biggest problem is probably the hard drive.

Another route is to clone the system into a virtual machine.

[soldar]

This is a good route to take. Dell OptiPlex machines are reliable and will run for very long (unless you stick them in a very hot place). The biggest problem is probably the hard drive.

Not only that, if you have a second machine on standby you can even just use it for parts and swap out the bad part from the first machine. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

I have always liked having redundant systems because it helps so much in troubleshooting and repairing. My wife and I have exactly the same duplicate laptops, WIN desktops and another Linux desktop, monitors, etc. Same HW, same SW configuration. That helps a lot with diagnosis and repairs.

[duak]

Don't hold me to this for every case but I understand that Microsoft had a deal with Dell to provide XP for turnkey systems as part of the price.   It may be that if you are installing XP on a Dell computer, you don't need an activation code.   I've got a few older Dells (pre I3, I5, I7 series processors) that I've installed XP on either from a Dell OEM CDROM or a generic CDROM.  The install never asked for a code from the COA for activation.  I don't know if it activated later when it got on the 'net.

Other manufacturers (hp, Gateway, eMachines etc.) may have worked out a deal with Microsoft for an OS license but I have no experience with them at all.

For what it's worth,

Cheers,

[digsys]

... if you are installing XP on a Dell computer, you don't need an activation code  ....  installed XP on either from a Dell OEM CDROM or a generic CDROM.  The install never asked for a code from the COA for activation .... Other manufacturers (hp, Gateway, eMachines etc.) may have worked out a deal with Microsoft for an OS license ...

That's what I find with just about every laptop, and just about every name brand (of that era). I still load fresh XP3 on laptops without needing to activate.

[Halcyon]

In my experience just transferring a hard disk over to another machine (even if you delete all the drivers in device manager beforehand) usually doesn't end well.

If you have a different HAL, Windows will just blue screen and refuse to boot. The HAL is installed during the initial part of the Windows setup process and there is no easy way to replace or change it on older Windows versions. Never versions of Windows will decide on the appropriate HAL on boot.

You could try virtualising it in something like ESXi. That is what I would do. Get yourself a decent server, install a bare-metal hypervisor on it and run your legacy software in a VM. PCI express RS232 adapters are fairly common and easy to find. With ESXi, you can pass-through the physical card to your guest OS, so it communicates directly with the hardware. I do this with disk controllers and network cards all the time.

[soldar]

Don't hold me to this for every case but I understand that Microsoft had a deal with Dell to provide XP for turnkey systems as part of the price.   It may be that if you are installing XP on a Dell computer, you don't need an activation code.   I've got a few older Dells (pre I3, I5, I7 series processors) that I've installed XP on either from a Dell OEM CDROM or a generic CDROM.  The install never asked for a code from the COA for activation.  I don't know if it activated later when it got on the 'net.

Other manufacturers (hp, Gateway, eMachines etc.) may have worked out a deal with Microsoft for an OS license but I have no experience with them at all.

That is called a "volume license" and only works with the installation disk with the correct PID and the correct hardware (Dell or whatever). I have a whole collection of win xp disks with the different license types.

[james_s]

The problem you are likely to have with new hardware is drivers, for example on my desktop I tried installing XP and Vista on separate hard drives I plug in and neither OS supported the onboard graphics.

You should be able to easily find a good used machine to have as a spare. Pick up a couple of them if you have room, it'll be fine.

[free_electron]

You write 'critical monitoring'. And you want to kludge something together ? 

First rule of engineering : if it works , leave it alone.

And if you really want to 'clone' this thing : go on ebay and buy the same machine.
This is a Dell machine , so it means that this comes preloaded with a dell windows image. Those are transportable between (identical) machines. Windows looks for a marker stored in the bios to detect if it is allowed to run.

Clone the harddisk and the bios chip and off you go. In many Dell machines this is a simple Flash eprom in a socket.

[soldar]

First rule of engineering : if it works , leave it alone.

Now you tell me! All my life I thought the rule was: if it works, mess with it until you find out why it stopped working when you started messing with it.

[Delta]

You write 'critical monitoring'. And you want to kludge something together ? 

First rule of engineering : if it works , leave it alone.

I'm not sure if you're being factitious, but I am not trying to kludge anything together, nor am I planning to mess around with anything that's working fine.
I am trying to assemble a working spare, ready to be used when called upon. That is good engineering practice, is it not?

Yes, it is working, but if it dies it will very suddenly be my fault.

I am just a lowly electronics technician, on a drilling rig in the middle of the sea, working for a company with an incredibly slow moving buerocratic stores/management/logistics/purchasing circus.  I can't just get stuff on next day delivery from the online retailer of my choice, nor nip to the local computer shop.

Ah maybe you're right, fuck 'em, who do I think I am anyway?! I clearly don't know what I'm doing. Thanks for keeping me right, Sir.  At least a drew a cock on a 690v busbar today.

[free_electron]

You write 'critical monitoring'. And you want to kludge something together ? 

First rule of engineering : if it works , leave it alone.

I'm not sure if you're being factitious, but I am not trying to kludge anything together, nor am I planning to mess around with anything that's working fine.
I am trying to assemble a working spare, ready to be used when called upon. That is good engineering practice, is it not?

Yes, it is working, but if it dies it will very suddenly be my fault.

I am just a lowly electronics technician, on a drilling rig in the middle of the sea, working for a company with an incredibly slow moving buerocratic stores/management/logistics/purchasing circus.  I can't just get stuff on next day delivery from the online retailer of my choice, nor nip to the local computer shop.

Ah maybe you're right, fuck 'em, who do I think I am anyway?! I clearly don't know what I'm doing. Thanks for keeping me right, Sir.  At least a drew a cock on a 690v busbar today.

OIL rig ? please don't make another deepwater horizon .....

Like i said : if you want to make a spare : get an IDENTICAL machine off ebay ( or two or three ) , clone the drives and the bios eeprom and done.
Then you will have a backup.

But even then... For an oil rig ? if they can't spend 50K on a machine then we are all doomed...

[soldar]

Delta, calm down.  Maybe you need some shore leave and R&R.

I think the consensus is that the best thing to do is to have spares for all the parts of the machine which basically means having a spare machine. It is simple and inexpensive. Anything else will be more complicated, more espensive and less reliable as a solution. 

[Halcyon]

You write 'critical monitoring'. And you want to kludge something together ? 

First rule of engineering : if it works , leave it alone.

I'm not sure if you're being factitious, but I am not trying to kludge anything together, nor am I planning to mess around with anything that's working fine.
I am trying to assemble a working spare, ready to be used when called upon. That is good engineering practice, is it not?

Yes, it is working, but if it dies it will very suddenly be my fault.

It is good practice. Redundancy is very important, even in non-critical systems.

Also, it's not a case of IF it dies, but how long until it actually does die.

[james_s]

That is a modern enough machine that there will still be a bunch of them around, but old enough that a truly modern one is likely to require significant effort to make it work. The path of least resistance is to find one or more identical or at least very similar machines to have as spares. If you have a whole machine, you have at least one of every spare part you could possibly need, and you can save time by just swapping the whole machine, then troubleshoot later at your leisure.

[digsys]

I'll add one more note before this thread ends - to answer comments on "newer machines won't have drivers for blah blah blah"
On several occasions over the years, I've come across that situation installing XP3 on newer hardware - All I had to do is find drivers for "older" versions of
that core processor / controller, and see if XP was happy with it. It would ALWAYS install the base functions (never had to try more than 2 versions).
The functions that didn't get installed weren't of much use anyway. NEVER had a failed attempt. I may have tweaked a registry item once or twice, but only
cause I wanted to see how far I could go.

[OwO]

 

Windows XP in 2019. Running critical infrastructure where down time would cost > $200k.
Let that sink in.

If I were you I would be scrambling to find a replacement or develop my own. I would think even some shitty in-house software running on an Orange Pi would be better than this piece of shit.

[TERRA Operative]

What ever you end up doing (I would virtualise XP on a server with a redundant disk array to allow hotswapping), be sure to use good hardware (no cheap PSU's!) and NAS rated disks at least, enterprise disks at best.

Virtualising XP on a server means you aren't limited by harware obsolescence anymore, and most server motherboards come with a real serial port for console access too so you are covered there. But you can always just plug in a pci serial card whichever way you go I guess.

[james_s]

I'll add one more note before this thread ends - to answer comments on "newer machines won't have drivers for blah blah blah"
On several occasions over the years, I've come across that situation installing XP3 on newer hardware - All I had to do is find drivers for "older" versions of
that core processor / controller, and see if XP was happy with it. It would ALWAYS install the base functions (never had to try more than 2 versions).
The functions that didn't get installed weren't of much use anyway. NEVER had a failed attempt. I may have tweaked a registry item once or twice, but only
cause I wanted to see how far I could go.

If you can find a driver for the onboard graphics that will let me run XP on my core i7 desktop I'm all ears. Maybe it was Vista and XP had some other issue but I spent a solid day trying to get either OS running properly on it since MS Flight Sim crashes frequently on Win7 x64. I eventually gave up, after running into multiple apparent show stoppers.

[digsys]

If you can find a driver for the onboard graphics that will let me run XP on my core i7 desktop I'm all ears. Maybe it was Vista and XP had some other issue but I spent a solid day trying to get either OS running properly on it since MS Flight Sim crashes frequently on Win7 x64. I eventually gave up, after running into multiple apparent show stoppers.

There's been way too many hardware / bios changes the last few years, so anything i5 + would not be easy. Not saying it is impossible, but it'd need a lot of
googling :-). I never pushed the limit. Was just pointing out that you can usually get away with using "foreign" drivers. May be of help to someone.

[james_s]

I think if I used a separate video card I could have gotten Vista working but I didn't want to get a card just for that one use case.

[soldar]

Windows XP in 2019. Running critical infrastructure where down time would cost > $200k.
Let that sink in.

If I were you I would be scrambling to find a replacement or develop my own. I would think even some shitty in-house software running on an Orange Pi would be better than this piece of shit.

I do not understand nor share this attitude.  If it works reliably why spend time, money and effort on something which might work worse and create new problems. Not to mention that the OP is not the person who has the authority to decide this.

This type of response is just not helpful. You are pounding nails with a hammer just like the Romans did? You should get a Quarter Pounder 2500 which works with retrospective energy and can drive 25000 nails an hour into bituminous concrete!

[LapTop006]

Windows XP in 2019. Running critical infrastructure where down time would cost > $200k.
Let that sink in.

If I were you I would be scrambling to find a replacement or develop my own. I would think even some shitty in-house software running on an Orange Pi would be better than this piece of shit.

I do not understand nor share this attitude.  If it works reliably why spend time, money and effort on something which might work worse and create new problems. Not to mention that the OP is not the person who has the authority to decide this.

If it has zero connection to any network? Perhaps, although I'd certainly want to see a sensible sparing strategy long before now.

If it's got *any* connection to a network? No. Just no. The level of work you'd need to do to make that acceptable is enough that it might be *easier* to get things running on Win10 (or at least Win7, but that goes out of support in a year).

[CJay]

Windows XP in 2019. Running critical infrastructure where down time would cost > $200k.
Let that sink in.

If I were you I would be scrambling to find a replacement or develop my own. I would think even some shitty in-house software running on an Orange Pi would be better than this piece of shit.

It worked when it was new, it was specced as that when new, how is it suddenly unsuitable?

[james_s]

I just haven't seen issues with running old operating systems, despite the hysteria it invokes. I have an XP laptop I still use for specific purposes, it connects to my WiFi when I boot it up but I don't actually surf the web from it. I've never had it get infected, and I'm not really sure how someone would manage to attack it. It's behind a NAT router/firewall, not an impervious barrier by any means but combine that with the fact that nobody outside knows it's there and it's a very low value target. Exploits are a big problem with outside facing systems, servers of all types, but for a domestic PC that's behind a router and not serving anything? I've cleaned up a LOT of infected PCs but not a single one of those was due to an unpatched exploit, they have ALL gotten infected by the user getting tricked into installing something or surfing sketchy sites using an outdated browser. The user is always the most easily exploitable element and one that is impossible to patch. To reiterate, I'm talking about personal computers, not outward facing servers.

This attitude of "OMG it's so ancient and has to be upgraded in the name of safety!!" thing is relatively new and I suspect largely perpetrated by those who stand to gain from providing software upgrades and support.

[soldar]

I just haven't seen issues with running old operating systems, despite the hysteria it invokes. I have an XP laptop I still use for specific purposes, it connects to my WiFi when I boot it up but I don't actually surf the web from it. I've never had it get infected, and I'm not really sure how someone would manage to attack it. It's behind a NAT router/firewall, not an impervious barrier by any means but combine that with the fact that nobody outside knows it's there and it's a very low value target. Exploits are a big problem with outside facing systems, servers of all types, but for a domestic PC that's behind a router and not serving anything? I've cleaned up a LOT of infected PCs but not a single one of those was due to an unpatched exploit, they have ALL gotten infected by the user getting tricked into installing something or surfing sketchy sites using an outdated browser. The user is always the most easily exploitable element and one that is impossible to patch. To reiterate, I'm talking about personal computers, not outward facing servers.

This attitude of "OMG it's so ancient and has to be upgraded in the name of safety!!" thing is relatively new and I suspect largely perpetrated by those who stand to gain from providing software upgrades and support.

I totally agree with this. I am still running Win XP PRO SP3 on about nine computers. I have *never* used AV software which I consider to be worse than a virus. And I have never been infected with anything. Never. I am extremely careful with what I install and I have a brain. That's it. The best antivirus is free and is between your ears.

If it works why would you care that it's old? On the contrary, it shows it has withstood the test of time. I used to work for an aerospace manufacturer and some of the devices and components used were ancient. People used to ask me why they would use ancient components when there were newer, better ones available. Well, the old ones are reliable and have proven themselves. The newer ones not so much.

[james_s]

One of the few reasons I have replaced older reliable hardware with newer stuff is power consumption. I used to run a home server on an old Dell Optiplex that pulled about 200W. Later I replaced this with a Sun Sparcstation that was around 60W as I recall. Then several years ago I replaced it with a Raspberry Pi that draws about 2.5W. All of these systems performed similarly and I wouldn't be shocked if the old Dell would have kept going all this time, but my electricity isn't free and something running 24/7 the kWhs add up.

[edy]

Is it possible for you to just run it in a Virtual environment? Rip the harddrive into a virtual disk, or set up a new WinXPMode installation and run it under VirtualBox? I've had success cloning WinXPMode and running it in VirtualBox with no issues at all. You need a license to initially register WinXPMode, but once you have it made, you can fairly easily copy and paste the virtual machine on any number of other machines and run it under VirtualBox.

[rrinker]

 I would definitely virtualize something like this, then you can keep copies of the virtual machine file that can be quickly spun up on other hardware if the original hardware fails. Then the underlying hardware doesn't really matter, so long as it has enough resources to run the VM, it can fire up this system and get back in business.
 We've done this many times, not for the purpose of retaining an old system, but for the purpose of keeping it going long enough to transfer the data to more modern systems.

 As for swapping drives - with XP that's not likely to work very well. I've done it many times with newer versions of Windows. At one point I went through 3 laptops in a month - not failures but a newer and better model became available. I just swapped the hard drive, I believe it was Windows 7 at the time. It booted, did a whole bunch of driver updates and rebooted. Sometimes there was a missing driver, but nothing critical to the basic boot and login, so it was just a matter of hitting the manufacturer web site and downloading the missing driver. That was swapping between different models, with different CPUs, screen resolutions, etc. but all from the same manufacturer. Even if you DO get that far with XP - most newer hardware does not even have XP drivers available from the vendor.

[Electro Detective]

Thumbs up here for running XP (and 2000!) on DELL gear    NEVER had a problem > PAY ONCE, CRY ONCE OEM PCs

just make sure you have the genuine Dell XP Recovery CD to bail you out in case of drama,
with no Activation BS or desperate online piracy suggestions to think about on a legit Dell box/laptop if/when shtf
and you have to nuke a p0rn infected partition, format and reinstall


FWIW: Dell Vista SP2 and Win 7 OEM upgrade rigs aren't too shabby either 

------------------

 @ Dell: please PM me for my banking details,
even though I spoke the truth, no urban battler plugs stuff for free in 2019,
and corporate praise doesn't put food on the table, or buy new OEM PCs.

Thanks in advance, Happy New Year, and don't be cheap about it darlings 

[Psi]

I used to do the trick where you install a service pack and then change the drive at the point where it says it has to reboot to finish the install. The reason being that the service pack update forces a hardware re-detect at this point in the process, so you can get it to boot when it would have otherwise BSOD.

[Electro Detective]

I used to do the trick where you install a service pack and then change the drive at the point where it says it has to reboot to finish the install.

The reason being that the service pack update forces a hardware re-detect at this point in the process, so you can get it to boot when it would have otherwise BSOD.

Not quite with you on that one   

If you "change the drive at the point where it says it has to reboot to finish the install..." how does the C: or main Boot Drive drive get ummm...Service Packed?

Where do the files go? or does it default back to C: on the reboot ?

Handy to know if it works, and on any PC


EDIT: I'm assuming it means a physical drive swap from one PC box to another PC 

[Psi]

Sorry, i should have been clearer.
Yes, exactly

I mean you swap the drive from it's current MB/CPU/RAM/VID hardware to a totally new one.
A lot of the time doing this on XP results in a BSOD or a windows activation error because it expects to find the hardware it was first installed on.
But if you do it during the service pack reboot it does a hardware redetect and doesn't have the problem,

Oh and if you're already on the latest service pack, so can't upgrade to anything, I have had good luck rolling it back to a past service pack using an old restore point and then replying the service pack.

From memory there is another way to force a hardware re-detect, i can't remember what it was but i do remember it being easier to just use the service pack reboot method.