Will I have to reinstall windows if I upgrade my motherboard?

[Hammahness]

I'm currently upgrading my motherboard from an ASUS Sabertooth Z87 to a ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 motherboard.

I found out my Z87 had its south bridge burned because I'm not supposed to leave it in sleep mode all the time when its not in use.

The 2 motherboards support the same chipset and I have some large games already downloaded onto my HDD so I'm wondering if I have to reinstall windows 10 after the upgrade?

 

[delaro]

Windows will have to do a Recovery to reinstall all the drivers but you wont have to do a full reinstall.

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

BACK UP YOUR DATA BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING
You wont need to reinstall Win 10 after the upgrade but it may need some driver updates for the new mobo, which it should find on the web automatically, but you might need to manually download and install missing drivers. you can see the missing drivers in Device Manager with warning triangles.
Activation:
You might need to re-activate Windows 10, so you "may" need your Windows 10 product key or if you sign in with a Microsoft Account, it may automatically re-activate using your online account (this bit is a bit foggy for me).
If you did the free Win 10 upgrade from Win 7, you might need to harvest your Win 10 key using the "get windows Product Key" VBS script file which will get your product key. Do this before you swap mobos.
http://www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/
Read this bit starting "Copy and paste the following into a Notepad window:" and follow the instructions.

 

[Hammahness]

@nine So after I replace the board, I won't have to worry about reinstalling Windows, just that some drivers will be missing? Btw I've been using an non-activated version of windows so I think that part shouldn't be a worry as of now

 

[delaro]

If the drivers vary to wildly Windows 10 will go into a automatic recovery mode when you boot, You wont lose any personal data with this but Windows itself will display a .old folder you will have to delete later, this folder just contains the old Windows system and not personal data or files.

Your Win 10 Product key should be linked to your Microsoft account when you installed Win 10 the first time so you don't need to look for a key, all you have to do is log in back to that account on the install.