Hi guys I'm back sooner than I expected, I won't bore you with the details but suffice it to say that I settled my new apartment which I will move into November 1st. My new system will arrive this week and I will have time to set it up test it and get all my software and data installed and transferred over and everything tweaked (and backed up) before packing it up for the move. All right so I have backed everything up but still there are a few things that were on my old systems' Hd before the mobo went belly up. I am thinking of the following procedure and need some advice as to whether it is correct.My system, Dell 1.8Ghzx512K, 512 Meg 266mhz DDR ram, 40GB ide HD, Geforce4 64Meg, Soundblaster live, with speakers mouse etc. and WinXP home edition,1.Get new sytem out of box, set it up with monitor, keyboard mouse etc. turn it on to see if it works out of the box. Play around with XP as am not familiar with it.2.Hook up printer etc. and other old periphirals to see if they work..3.Install my software (Office and my other games) and FS2002 and any patches (does not apply to fs2k2 ;) ) then run them to see if they work ok.4.Defrag then install various add-ons (oh boy lots of them) and their patches, check to see they are OK.5. Create a temp holding folder then start next trickey operation: hook up old HD and dump old fsinfo folder with loads of tips saved threads and back ups and old FS2002 folder with mods etc. then unhook it and paste over any gauges or custom things into the new fs2002 install.6. Tweak then enjoy flying.7. Do it all over again in how long???? :-lol One more thing I have heard a buzz around the forums there are problems with Windows XP SP1. So Computer gurus what say you??

no problems here with sp1, and it fixes a nasty hole, which can only be fixed with sp1. highly recommend you sp1, and then run windows update soon after your machine is up

Thanks I'll do that.

Hi Joe,I don't consider myself a Guru, but I've had some trials and errors with XP that might be helpful.I replaced my motherboard last december and upgraded to a very similar system to yours, including XP. I got a new large HD at the time so I could do a clean install with XP. I did the file transfer by pluging in the old HD like you are talking about and it worked great. I did have trouble transfering my old Netscape mail messages to a new install of Netscape 6. Ended up having to email them back to myself into Outlook express (bummer). Decided to dump Netscape because of the difficulty of transfering messages between versions or Outlook express.One big problem I had was a 2 year old Canon printer that was not compatible with XP. I decided to set up XP to dual boot with Win98. It turns out that to do this you have to do a clean install of Win 98, then install XP. In order to install Win98 you must have at least one partition as FAT, not NTFS (which is probably what you new system will have). I did this and feel that it was worth the trouble to be able to run programs in Win98 for testing or comparison, and getting the old printer to work.My recommendation is before you start installing programs on your new system find the driver download sites for all your existing hardware and see if there are XP drivers available. Read an article in the Help and Support system in XP (find it by typing in 'dual boot')which tells you what to do to setup a dual boot system. Then decide if it seems worth it to you. Installing XP is even easier and faster than previous OS's, and I did not have any problems. (I can email you the help article if you want to read it before you get your new system)In general I find Xp to be great, more stable and less prone to unrecoverable errors. I do recommend installing an internet security program (I use Norton), especially if you have a cable modem or DSL connection.I installed sp1 and after restarting as required I found my internet connection wiped out. After plenty of anguish (including trying to restore the registry which didn't work) I unplugged the usb connection to my cable modem, rebooted, then plugged it back in and all worked perfectly.Feel free to email if you want to talk more about [email protected] Logan