New Computer

[Railrunner130]

I wasn't sure this was the right place, so if it isn't, please feel free to move appropriately.

My Dell M1710 video card quit last week. The computer itself I got 2 1/2 years ago reconditioned, so rather than mess with trying to find a replacement card, (and potentially have something else quit), I decided to buy an M1730. It is currently in production.

I pulled the old hard drive and got a box-thingy so I can still use it. All seems fine with the data on it.

My question is this-

Is there a way to cut and paste FSX-SP2 from the old hard drive to the new? I'm not afraid to do some complex work to do it. I figure with Avsim going down the same day, it may be easier to move files than try to rebuild from scratch.

Also, the old machine was XP and the new is Vista- a "joy" I'm not really looking forward to based on some comments I've heard. What do I need to know about how FSX acts between operating systems?

Thanks!

[JSpal]

Trying to cut and paste the entire FSX system into the new computer is going to be problematic at best, it may not be possible at all. It's certainly going to require some tweaking inside your system registry to get it to run and going from XP to Vista is going to make that much more difficult.

I would do a fresh install in Vista, then copy and paste the sim-objects, gauges, sounds, and effect folders from the old drive into the new system and see how things work from there. Some more complex add-ons may need to be reinstalled using their installer program to get all of the features to work.

You could try (and I stress "TRY") swapping your old harddrive into the new system and boot up the old OS. You might be able to keep your whole XP install if it works, but be ready to go through the rigamarole or activating windows with the old serial number on the new system. Windows will recognise that the system is significantly different and will want you to re-register. If you do it that way, you will also probably have to uninstall a lot of your old drivers and install drivers that match the new hardware.

I've been able to do this a couple of times successfully, but I've also done it a couple of times and even after fixing all the drivers I still had stability issues.

[Railrunner130]

Thanks for the input. I'll most likely copy the gauges, etc. over. I've done that previously with upgrading both/either computer or flightsim version.