The Triora Group

Yes, it’s that golden time of year when boys get to buy new toys, so I’ve invested in a hot new Dell laptop that I’ve been eying for months.  Once the fun of tearing open the package is over, it’s time for the real work of figuring out what and how to install things.

My new laptop came with Vista something on it and after looking at it for several days and seeing nothing compelling, I reformatted the drive and started the effort to make it a useful tool for my work.

My other laptop is approaching 5 years of age, which in laptop years is about 115.  But it’s still working with a little help from some upgrades along the way.

I managed to get XP Pro installed on the new Dell and now the fun began.  First I had to install all of the XP device drivers that didn’t weren’t included with my system.  I was able to go to Dell and find a similiar system that had been offered with XP Pro so I could use those device drivers.  Mostly what I needed were things for the built in camera, fingerprint scanner, etc.

Then I had all of this licensed software on my old laptop that I wanted to delete and move to my new laptop.  Stuff like Microsoft Project, Visio, Office 2007, etc.  Not something that you can pick up for a reasonable price at a local store, right?  And since my old laptop was going to be relegated to lesser roles I didn’t want to leave it over there.

Some of the software I had the original license paraphenalia and some I didn’t.  You know, those long sets of codes with hyphens in them?  To be sure, the software was all legitimately licensed but I couldn’t locate all of the pieces of paper with the mysterious codes.  That led me to do some more surfing where I found that this is a common issue on many forums.  While OEM Operating systems stay with the original hardware, those other products you buy and add should travel freely to your new system.  However out of the fear of piracy there’s no simple way to handle this via Microsoft without going before their bench and pledging your life and honor.

However, to my happy relief I found a workaround in a product called Product Key Explorer .  For $30 I was able to download a copy and use it to ferret through my registry to tell me all of my Product Keys.  Using that information I was able to re-install my licensed software on the new Laptop (delete it from the old one of course!).

While I was on this little exercise of migrating I also had some issues with copying files over from a backup I made with Acronis.  To resolve that problem I stumbled upon an interesting product called Trinity Rescue Kit.  This is a free (please donate) product that consists of an ISO image that you write to a CD.  What is on the ISO disk is a bootable Linux environment with tools that will work on NTFS file systems.  There are also Virus scanning tools and other neat things that are great for rescuing a system from afar.  Very cool tool and just what I needed to resolve the “corrupted files” message I was getting.

So as the Holidays approach, I’m at the point where my new Dell is working great and I’m a happy camper.

Ah… time for some warm cocoa.

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