I doubt that you will be able to do any of what you want.  XP from your 
computer should not work on his, and trying to make it work is illegal - 
although, if he has a license to run XP on his disk, you may feel morally 
okay.  Whether you can install other software effectively depends on various 
factors.   In any case if he is not licensed to use Word on his computer, 
then installing it is software piracy which we do not condone.  If he is 
licensed, it may be morally okay, but you may run into copy protection 
schemes.  There may be work-arounds for these that I don't know, but that is 
not what we are trying to promote on PCBUILD.

You could try to use his restore disks on his hd on your computer, but the 
driver issue is still there.

Your best bet is to simply use the restore cd's on his drive on his 
computer.  If this is unfeasible (say, because you are miles apart and do 
not want to send the whole computer), you could try to use his restore disks 
on his hd on your computer, but you might run into some hassles.

"His current drive is all messed up and he doesn't want to go to the trouble 
and time to reformat it and install everything onto it. "   It sounds like 
this is the easiest thing to do with the highest probability of an effective 
outcome.

Dean

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 4:11 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Transferring Hard Drives


> Dean,
>
> What is really going on is that Lew wants me to install either my XP
> program on a new HD and then install programs he will be using, like
> Word, etc.  Then give him the drive back to use on his computer.  His
> current drive is all messed up and he doesn't want to go to the trouble
> and time to reformat it and install everything onto it.  My computer is
> an HP running no HP software.  His is an E machine.  Will he have
> problems with my XP?  Should I just use his restore CD's on his HD?
>
> The problem I think we'll encounter is the permissions of him running my
> XP on his computer, while I am still running it on mine.  I don't think
> he would be able to get updates.  So using the restore disks might be the
> best solution.  But will they every work for me to install them on his HD
> in my computer?  What about Word?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Diane
>

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