Windows 7 reinstall or boot?

[Ramkumar V]

I was running windows 7-64bit in ASUS z-97A motherboard for 2 years when the motherboard failed. can I buy Gigabyte z-97x-SLI. Will it necessitate reinstall of my windows 7? Should I buy the same asus z-97A to avoid the reinstall.

 

[clutchc]

Since the boards are so closely similar, it probably will be able to boot to the desktop OK by self-installing the missing drivers it needs for the board devices. Then you'd want to run something like CCleaner and run its Clean and Registry portions both to clean up any crap left over from the old installation. Then install the new drivers for the new board from the utility disk.

But you'll have to re-activate Win again after it sees a new PC (board) on the same license. If you have a OEM Win 7, you may be asked to jump thru a few hoops to get it re-activated. But it usually works. Worse case scenario I've had happen is having to talk to a M$ rep and explain why I wanted to use the license on another machine. But I've never had a re-install denied... yet.

Even replacing the board with and identical one would probably demand you do the same thing with re-activating.