What is the best way to restore a Windows XP backup on a different computer?

Question

Our computer was fried in an electrical storm. Fortunately I have a backup of our files and settings on an external hard drive (this was made using Windows XP Professional). All I really care about is restoring our files to a different computer. My choices are: using my husband's work computer, which also runs Windows XP Pro or use our soon-coming new computer which will have Windows Vista Home Premium.
Is it possible to open the .bkp file in our external hard drive using my husband's computer and restoring just the files (I don't want to overwrite his work stuff)? Or will everything be restored? Is it possible to do this on our new computer with Vista, even though the backup was made using XP?
Help!

To clarify:
When I made the backup, I used XP's backup utility and selected "Files and settings."

Answer 1

Depends on how the backup was made, and what was backed up. If all you had it backing up was your data (pictures, music, etc) then you can restore it to either PC.

If you had it backup program information and Windows settings, then restoring it could be a problem.

I would recommend that you check that your new computer comes with a Restore Disk (or follow the instructions they give you to make one) before you try restoring anything. Then if the worst happens, you can return the computer to its original state. Then run the backup and see what happens.

If nothing else, if you can get the music, pictures, etc on to the new Pc, then burn them to CD/DVD, and then restore the computer to its original state. After that, you will be able to access all that information without having to access the backup file.