Motherboard upgrade without reinstalling windows

[Dongwook23]

So I am planning to upgrade my PC tomorrow, graphics card, motherboard, CPU, the whole shebang. I was wondering if I need to reinstall windows if I upgrade my motherboard. I just don't want to go out of my way to reinstall everything. Is it possible?

[TheFishBucket]

You don’t need to reinstall Windows, UNLESS you replace the hard drive or SSD.

[VinsinityKT]

I would reinstall just to be safe in case of conflicting drivers. Also windows 10 licenses are attached to your account or the motherboard.

[Dongwook23]

Yep, I forgot to note that I'm keeping the storage. Thanks!

[Lurick]

I upgraded my motherboard and CPU a while back and windows detected the change and figured everything out. The one thing I will say is make sure you tie your key to your Microsoft account if possible or have the key handy just in-case you need to reactivate.

[APasz]

Over the new year I upgraded my own machine from a 4770k to a 9900k and another machine from a A8-5600k to my now old 4770k without reinstalling windows.

Apart from needing to re-enter my cd key everything worked just fine. Which was especially surprising for the AMD to Intel upgrade.

 

Windows 10 seems to be surprisingly resilient to hardware changes these days.

[Princess Luna]

It depends from what to what really so kindly add that information.

 

What OS you're using also matters.

[RejZoR]

Things only go weird if you have Intel RST installed. Or if you're going from Intel to AMD chipset or vice versa. If it's Intel to Intel, you often don't have to do anything. Windows will auto install required drivers for chipset.

[Dekenizer]

We've done it here quite a few times, and it works well, no random blue screen issues... Windows 10 isn't that bad for reused OS... But if you had Windows XP and a different chipset, that was like 95% instant blue screen... ahhh those where the days... 

 

Oh unless you have a Zotac CI329... we had issues with reimaging those... 

[homeap5]

I'm shocked, so many answers and not even one with standard "you must reinstall Windows even if you're changing mouse".

 

Yes, they're right, your system will work.

 

if you want to clean it later, you can use Ghostbuster tool, but only if you know what you are doing. But everything will work even without that. Good luck with your new hardware.

[Sprawlie]

yes, Windows has gotten pretty good.

 

I went from my i5-4670 -> R7-1700 -> i5-4570 -> R7-1700 all within the span of 2 weeks, on the identical install of windows.

 

I'm truly amazed it worked. But it worked. That's not something i would have ever tried prior to win10.

 

note: this absolutely forced windows to need to be re-registered

[homeap5]

3 hours ago, Sprawlie said:

I'm truly amazed it worked. But it worked. That's not something i would have ever tried prior to win10.

I made that even with XP and win7. :)