Question boot drive and swapping motherboard

[Judstar180]

Hello, recently built a budget pc and am now ready to start upgrading but still keep it reasonably priced. I am swapping a Gigabyte ga-h81m-s2pv with an i7-4770 to a msi b450m and ryzen 5 5500. (I have GTX 1660 SUPER) Just wondering if when I change motherboards, can I use the same boot drive? I have a sata ssd with a un-activated version of windows 10. So can I just put the new cpu and motherboard in and plug in the boot drive? Thanks.

 

[boju]

Big change like that, reinstall Windows.

 

[Misgar]

can I just put the new cpu and motherboard in and plug in the boot drive?

Yes, you could fit the old drive in a new motherboard and Windows might start, detect all the new hardware and load the appropriate drivers. Then again, it might not work.

Whether it's a good idea is a completely different matter. All kinds of unwanted "cruft" and Registry settings will remain, making the new system potentially unstable.

Far better to leave the old drive in the old motherboard so you've got another working system, and as @boju says, install a fresh copy of Windows (on a new drive if you have one).