Question on upgrading

[Fenixdown]

Not certain if the title will be as clear as I'm hoping, but here is what I'm experiencing (or soon to,r ahter).

I am upgrading my machine hardcore. A far better processor, far superior graphics card, and an addition GB of RAM. All of this to combat the awesomesauce 3 FPS I'm getting in fights like Marrowgar and Sindragosa (in fact, my highest FPS in 25-mans during boss encouters hovers around 13).

Anyhoo, the extra stick of RAM will put me to 4 GB, which in order to properly utilize requires me to upgrade to a 64-bit OS. That being said, you cannot upgrade a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit version, which means I must install a new OS from scratch. Now, since I also intend to put in a secondary hard drive, what I was thinking of doing is backing up all of my current system stuff onto it before installing my new OS (which will likely be Windows 7).

Now, here's my question. Will I have to reinstall World of Warcraft, or is it possible to copy all of my WoW files from my secondary hard drive to my primary? Do I have to do a complete reinstall onto the new OS or can I avoid the days of torment and agony and simply avoid it all with just a much quicker move?

Any information or advice would be most appreciated. Thank you.

[nwo]

Just do a fresh install on the new hard drive and keep everything as-is on your current hard drive. Just make sure you set your new drive as your primary boot device and you shouldn't have problems. I've done it many times before, but never with 32 bit/64 bit OS like you.

[Cilraaz]

Now, here's my question. Will I have to reinstall World of Warcraft, or is it possible to copy all of my WoW files from my secondary hard drive to my primary? Do I have to do a complete reinstall onto the new OS or can I avoid the days of torment and agony and simply avoid it all with just a much quicker move?

Any information or advice would be most appreciated. Thank you.

You can simply move WoW to your secondary drive, reinstall Windows, and then move WoW back to your primary drive. You will want to make sure to run Launcher.exe on your first load of WoW (rather than WoW.exe), as the launcher will add/fix the necessary registry keys.