Reinstalling Windows 10 after a motherboard upgrade.

[RayK49]

I'm currently in the process of upgrading my Motherboard, CPU, and RAM. From what I've gathered, I'm going to have to reinstall Windows 10. Will I have to reinstall via a USB stick or could I just reinstall Windows 10 in the settings?
I got the free upgrade from Windows 7.

Thanks in advance.

 

[13thmonkey]

Until you've been told the steps to transfer your license, do not dismantle your current machine.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm currently in the process of upgrading my Motherboard, CPU, and RAM. From what I've gathered, I'm going to have to reinstall Windows 10. Will I have to reinstall via a USB stick or could I just reinstall Windows 10 in the settings?
I got the free upgrade from Windows 7.

Thanks in advance.

For your OS licensing...
Read and do this before you change any parts:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3164428/windows-build-1607-activation.html

 

[USAFRet]

For the actual OS operation...what parts are you changing from and to?

With a major parts change, there are 3 possible outcomes:
1. It boots up and works just fine
2 It fails to boot completely
3. It boots up, but you have a series of little issues you only find later.

There is no 'percentage' of working/not working. It all depends on which particular species of unicorn was carrying the leprechaun as they flew over and sprinkled magic dust over your new build.

A clean install always works.
You boot up from your install media and do a full clean install.
Prepare for that.

How to do a CLEAN installation of Windows 10

 

[RayK49]

Until you've been told the steps to transfer your license, do not dismantle your current machine.

I've already dismantled my PC, do you think its worth it to put the old parts back and then transfer my license? Or should I just carry on and see if my PC boots and reinstall from there?

 

[RayK49]

For the actual OS operation...what parts are you changing from and to?

With a major parts change, there are 3 possible outcomes:
1. It boots up and works just fine
2 It fails to boot completely
3. It boots up, but you have a series of little issues you only find later.

There is no 'percentage' of working/not working. It all depends on which particular species of unicorn was carrying the leprechaun as they flew over and sprinkled magic dust over your new build.

A clean install always works.
You boot up from your install media and do a full clean install.
Prepare for that.

How to do a CLEAN installation of Windows 10

From an AMD A8 6600K to a Ryzen 5 1600, GA-F2A55M-HD2 to a B350M Gaming Pro, and from Crucial DDR3 1600 8gb to an 8gb stick of HyperX Predator.
I've already partially dismantled my PC, but I can put the old parts back easily. Should I put the old parts back or should I hope that I got the right magic dust?

 

[13thmonkey]

you need to so that you can log your current build against an email address on MS, and therefore tell MS that this email address now belongs to a new set of hardware. Otherwise proving your license is valid is tough.

This is as per the second link from USAFRet.

 

[The Paladin]

well I can tell you this; (and perhaps I got lucky but I doubt it.)

old system i5-4570, Z87.,32GB, New system I7-8700, Z370, 16GB, took drives from old system slapped it into new system booted it, (ready to reinstall windows if need be)... logged into system and then only had to go to setting, and confirm identity.. and its been running since. I want to make a note here is the system user log into computer using a @outlook.com web account (MS Mail basically). No idea if that make any difference, but it works.

 

[13thmonkey]

4570 to 8700 might be close enough to just work, I did a sysprep to go from Q9550 to 3570k and that worked, kind of, but needed re-licensing of everything, USB3.0 isn't happy though, but that couldn't exist on the old board so I suspect that something didn't work there.

 

[USAFRet]

And my swap from an i5-3570k to i7-4790k failed completely.
Of course, that was basically a 5 year old 'install' at the time. 7->8->8.1->10...all 'inplace' upgrades. And migrating to different C drives along the way.
It was due for a full reinstall anyway

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

 

[The Paladin]

but yes safe to say;

1. back up your data
2. get your windows 7 license on hand.
3. prep your windows 10 USB
4. boot usb windows 10, use windows 7 license to register (home to home, pro to pro of course)
5. install

 

[RayK49]

but yes safe to say;

1. back up your data
2. get your windows 7 license on hand.
3. prep your windows 10 USB
4. boot usb windows 10, use windows 7 license to register (home to home, pro to pro of course)
5. install

I've been told that I don't have to do that because I'm using the same HDD, is that true?

 

[USAFRet]

but yes safe to say;

1. back up your data
2. get your windows 7 license on hand.
3. prep your windows 10 USB
4. boot usb windows 10, use windows 7 license to register (home to home, pro to pro of course)
5. install

I've been told that I don't have to do that because I'm using the same HDD, is that true?

The drive is not the key component here...the motherboard is.

As above...
1. Link your OS license to your MS account, even if this requires reassembling the original system.
2. Prepare for a full reinstall of the OS.

 

[RayK49]

but yes safe to say;

1. back up your data
2. get your windows 7 license on hand.
3. prep your windows 10 USB
4. boot usb windows 10, use windows 7 license to register (home to home, pro to pro of course)
5. install

I've been told that I don't have to do that because I'm using the same HDD, is that true?

The drive is not the key component here...the motherboard is.

As above...
1. Link your OS license to your MS account, even if this requires reassembling the original system.
2. Prepare for a full reinstall of the OS.

Ok, thanks for clarifying. I've already done step 1 so I'm really close to finishing.