Many people don’t know that you can easily (quickly and painfully!) go from uniprocessor (UP) to multiprocessor (MP) support in Windows 2000 by simply using the Device Manager. When switching motherboards you also need another HAL (hardware Abstraction Layer) to support the new board. To do this in Windows NT 4.0, you needed to use a Resource Kit utility called UPTOMP, or reinstall the operating system. A clunky method at best and not always without grief.

In Windows 2000 it’s simple.

The steps are:

1. In Control Panel, click System, choose the Hardware tab, then click the Device Manager button.
2. Select the Computer node and expand it.
3. Double-click the object listed there (on my system, it is usually called "Standard PC"), then choose the Driver tab.
4. Click the Update Driver button.
5. On the Upgrade Device Driver Wizard, click the Next button, then select "Display a known list of drivers for this device so that I can choose a specific driver." and click the Next button.
6. On the Select Device Driver page, select "Show all hardware of this device class."
7. Select the HAL that matches your new configuration, multiprocessor or uniprocessor. and click the Next button.
8. Check that the wizard is showing the configuration you want, then click the Next button to complete the wizard.
9. Reboot the system and you’re done.!