[SOLVED] Looking to upgarde CPU and Motherboard, will I have to buy and reinstall windows 10?

[The Domino]

I am looking to upgrade my current i5-4690k with an i7-9700k, this would require a new motherboard as LGA1151 is required, as I would be getting a new motherboard I would also buy DDR4 RAM as my current RAM is DDR3 and woul more than likely not work with the new motherboard, my question is would I be able to upgarde all these parts without having to reinstall windows 10? I had windows 7 and upgraded to 10 and from what I've seen online it can be a pain trying to upgarde your motherboard and keep all my files and windows install. Part of me says just buy a new SSD and windows 10 again and start from a clean slate as I would essentially be building a new computer anways, any information would be greatly appreciated, I have seen that some people have said that windows 10 will work fine with a new motherboard but will require a product kye, I have no idea how I would go about getting that as my windows install was origianlly a windows 7 disk from about 5 years ago.

 

[siaan312]

Okay so, windows is really weird when talking about swapping hardware, sometimes it will deactivate, sometimes it won't care.

it's generally better to format the drive, or get a new drive (same concept, starting from scratch) when putting together a new computer, or upgrading a big chunk of it.
Since drivers and such.

I would suggest atleast formatting, getting a new drive is cool too, but you dont have to.

 

[The Domino]

Okay so, windows is really weird when talking about swapping hardware, sometimes it will deactivate, sometimes it won't care.

it's generally better to format the drive, or get a new drive (same concept, starting from scratch) when putting together a new computer, or upgrading a big chunk of it.
Since drivers and such.

I would suggest atleast formatting, getting a new drive is cool too, but you dont have to.

Would this mean buying windows 10 again?

 

[Deleted member 2720853]

Always do a clean OS reinstallation when getting a new motherboard. Reason for this is your current motherboard may and most definitely does have different chipsets than the one you're planning to install, and so Windows may not boot up at all, and if it does, you'll have a variety of issues because of the drivers for the previous motherboard being installed.

 

[siaan312]

Would this mean buying windows 10 again?

formatting or getting a new drive means yes, buying win10 again.

you can get gray area keys on ebay for cheap.

 

[The Domino]

formatting or getting a new drive means yes, buying win10 again.

you can get gray area keys on ebay for cheap.

Cheers for the help, tbf it makes life a lot easier if I just saying "build a new pc" instead of messing around

 

[Gmoney06ss]

It doesn't always mean buying another key. If you associate your current key with a windows account, it'll be able to be reactivated once you reinstall windows.

There's an article here on Tom's with links to known safe sellers of discount keys. So zero point in buying a full priced key.

There's also just not activating and living with the watermark. Which is what I've done since I had forgotten what version I had when I upgraded. Downloaded pro instead of home, and now just deal with it.

 

[SamirD]

Always do a clean OS reinstallation when getting a new motherboard. Reason for this is your current motherboard may and most definitely does have different chipsets than the one you're planning to install, and so Windows may not boot up at all, and if it does, you'll have a variety of issues because of the drivers for the previous motherboard being installed.

To avoid this problem you can uninstall all hardware and drivers and as long as you get it all, you should be okay with the new config. If you reboot on your old hardware though when you're doing this, it will recognize everything and reload all the drivers though.

 

[Bob125484]

Intel 10th gen is released very soon. You may want to take a look. Some online website already taken pre-order.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-core-i9-10900k-preorder-price