Planning a System Rebuild, Don't Want to Reinstall Windows

[lirael]

So, I'm planning on basically replacing everything except my HDDs and my sound card. The new CPU is going to be the same brand as my old one (just an upgrade), but the motherboard, while the same brand, will be a different one. I've done some research which indicates that just plugging the old hard drive in will be a problem.

Which leads to the main question: If I back up/clone my entire hard drive to an external, would it be possible to restore from that backup/clone such that I don't need to reactivate windows or reinstall everything? Or should I give that idea up for lost and just back up my files and reinstall everything?

EDIT: Did some further research, discovered a handy command-line thing called sysprep. Will sysprep work the way I want this rebuild to work?

 

[Alec Mowat]

It might work, but I seriously don't recommend it.

Just asking for BSOD's down the road, among other problems.

Just copy your files to a new HD and install fresh to get maximum performance from the new system.

 

[wanderer11]

If you change your motherboard you need to reinstall your OS. You can change everything else (not you C: drive obviously) without reinstalling.