How do I not lose my files after installing new Motherboard and CPU?

[itswillc2]

So from looking around I've found that most people say you need to reinstall windows 7 to save your files. However when looking around at multiple threads on Microsoft's website and here, there is a lot of conflicting information and I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction? I'm going from a z97 chipset to a z370 chipset. I really don't want to have to go through reinstalling all of my games from steam and origin because that would take forever. Any guidance is appreciated, Will

 

[clutchc]

Those boards should be similar enough that you can try to boot to the desktop with the existing Win7 install. Win should load the necessary generic drivers for that new board. Then when finished, run something like CCleaner to clean up the registry, software conflicts, junk files, etc.
Finally, load the new drivers for the new board.

No guarantees, but it is likely you can run off the existing win7 installation you have now. Of course, it will need to be re-activated.

Btw, even if you have to do a clean install of Win, you may not have to re-download all your games. There is a work-around.

 

[USAFRet]

So from looking around I've found that most people say you need to reinstall windows 7 to save your files. However when looking around at multiple threads on Microsoft's website and here, there is a lot of conflicting information and I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction? I'm going from a z97 chipset to a z370 chipset. I really don't want to have to go through reinstalling all of my games from steam and origin because that would take forever. Any guidance is appreciated, Will

For a new motherboard, you may or may not have to do a full reinstall.
Prepare for this in case you do.
There are no guarantees either way.

Save all your personal docs, passwords, video, music, etc, etc, etc...off to some other drive.
Steam games...save the entire SteamApps folder off to some other drive.
Later, you can probably copy it back and tell the new Steam client where it is.

Now...for Win 7, you may need a whole new OS license. It may not be transferable to your new motherboard.

 

[itswillc2]

Those boards should be similar enough that you can try to boot to the desktop with the existing Win7 install. Win should load the necessary generic drivers for that new board. Then when finished, run something like CCleaner to clean up the registry, software conflicts, junk files, etc.
Finally, load the new drivers for the new board.

No guarantees, but it is likely you can run off the existing win7 installation you have now. Of course, it will need to be re-activated.

Btw, even if you have to do a clean install of Win, you may not have to re-download all your games. There is a work-around.

What would this work around be?

 

[clutchc]

Those boards should be similar enough that you can try to boot to the desktop with the existing Win7 install. Win should load the necessary generic drivers for that new board. Then when finished, run something like CCleaner to clean up the registry, software conflicts, junk files, etc.
Finally, load the new drivers for the new board.

No guarantees, but it is likely you can run off the existing win7 installation you have now. Of course, it will need to be re-activated.

Btw, even if you have to do a clean install of Win, you may not have to re-download all your games. There is a work-around.

What would this work around be?

If the Steam folder is on a separate drive, simply delete everything on the drive except for the SteamApps & Userdata folders and Steam.exe. Then run steam.exe once the new OS is installed. It will re-build itself.
If the Steam folder is on the boot drive, you'll have to off-load the folder to another drive/partition temporarily and them move it back following this similar method: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129