Advice requested.

[bw41101]

Greetings all;

After having a load of trouble with my old motherboard, I decided to whiz it. In view of this I've removed all of the hardware that resided within the old PC and (basically) used same to build a new machine - the replacement motherboard being a twin Xeon processor system rescued from a server.

Obviously my old Windows 2000 installation wouldn't boot with the new arrangement, so I've reinstalled same. However, I've noticed that Windows can see the original installation, I.e all of the drives and the software that's already installed on them. In addition, my Administrator "Documents and Settings" sub directory from the previous installation is still present - though not active, as it has been replaced with that set-up via the new Windows installation.

My question, is there a robust method of tricking Windows into recognising the original software set-up that's still present, or is it a case of having to laboriously reinstall same?

Even though I've built many machines in the past and would consider myself relatively aufait, I've never been put into this kind of position before. Anyway it doesn't hurt to ask.

All (constructive) advice would be appreciated.

Si thee

[AbyssUnderground]

Unfortunately you'll have to reinstall most programs, because a lot of them will edit system files and have lots of registry entries a fresh reinstall won't have. You can install them to the same directories and keep old documents etc, but because of the registry entries and system file changes, you do have to reinstall as apposed to just tricking Windows.