New computer

[khader]

Getting a new computer soon and looking for advice on how to smoothly get wow working on it.

Old computer is running XP and new one is running Vista.  Will try Vista - too many issues and will go back to XP. 

Can I download software from Blizzard without paying for it again?
Anything other than addons that need to be installed or copied from old computer to the new one?

[Arcdelad]

there are a few of us now who use vista with wow...I have had zero issues with wow itself. My issues have mostly come with Ventrilo, but Nix found a quick and easy fix for that.

Make sure you download your sidebar trinkets for Wow they are definitely neat hehehe

[Buzan]

Can I download software from Blizzard without paying for it again?
Anything other than addons that need to be installed or copied from old computer to the new one?

Everything that you pay and download online comes with a conf. # or something along those lines.

If you kept the one from Blizzard when you downloaded BC (I assume) you can do it again with no additional cost, if not you will pretty much have to pay again or call them and see if you can work something out.

[Kothnok]

If you can use both computers at the same time, you can hook them both up and share files between them (most routers these days come with a connection for 4 computers... unless you connect directly to your cablebox/modem).  Anyway, if you can get them both up and on the same router, then you can copy the old WoW folder onto your new drive and use it right away.  I had no issues doing that between my old and new laptop and will be soon doing it again as this one gets a low level format and reinstall of everything.

[Nasanna]

I bought a portable hard drive (they're about $100-150) and put my entire warcraft folder, documents, pictures, music and stuff on it and transfered everything from there to my new computer.

The only problem I've had is that Warcraft doesn't save screenshots I take now... but I think that's worth not having to reinstall all the patches and everything.

Vista works pretty well. It's not perfect, but WoW runs just fine on it.

[fiere redfern]

I haven't had issues running WoW on Vista either. Sure the system itself gets grumpy at times, but then I just whip out the baseball bat and it settles down quickly

As for reinstalling WoW - I don't know about the original since I was able to get my discs to work, but if you log into your account on worldofwarcraft.com, there should be a box with your account information and account type. For me, the account type says "Burning Crusade" and has a [download] hotlink next to it. I was able to use that to get BC installed, since those discs apparently got messed up (and I used them all of... once?) It'll take a good while for the file to download, but once it does you should be able to just run it and install BC =)

[Nixphire]

If you don't have the WoW cds any more. You can download the game from here http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/trial/index.html?referrer=WORLDOFWARCRAFT
It says the trail, but that's only for the account. You already know your user name and pw, so those won't change, it'll just let you download it from there.

[sweetblood]

just finished building my computer.i bought backup external drive which i use for pics and backup but used cds myself to reload.you can get another harddrive and install it in your computer,and put vista on one and xp on the other if you use raid controller.mine was crashing so i havent been on yet but narrowed it down to a memory issue.ill have 4 gigs as soon as it arives ,so hopefully ill be up soon...

[khader]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Got WoW running and so far other than Blizz's servers taking Sunday night off all has gone well.

Install was a bit rough.  I found Blizzard downloader to be problematic trying to download the 2GB of software.  Download got better after disabling then peer-to-peer setting but then Vista/hardware sleep mode kicked in after I went to bed. 

Wound up loading from WoW and TBC from original CDs and still had a 700MB download.

Will say that WoW on wide screen monitor helps with arranging all the windows from addons and still letting me see what I'm doing