Swap the operating system

[IronHead83]

I have a workstation with XP Pro on it, I have been offered a more powerful more modern unit without an operating system. I remember something about issues swapping drives from machine to machine with XP - security? Anybody try the procedure of simply installing a drive with XP into a different machine?
thanks

 

[PhilFrisbie]

Assuming you are going to scrap your old PC, and it does not have an OEM or upgrade version of XP: Take your XP full installation disk and use it to perform a fresh install on the new computer. Then install the special hardware drivers, install SP3 and all the other XP updates, and about two dozen reboots later all should be good!

 

[hang-the-9]

You can't swap drives from one model PC to another not just due to the license issues, the drivers for the old system will not work on the new PC, and it's very likely the system won't even boot. Need to re-install XP clean as in the post by Phil above.