Can you upgrade mobo cpu and ram and have WIndows 10 boot up without format or clean install

[Turtle Rig]

Hey all thanks for reading my thread.  Im so sorry if this should have been posted in the Operating System section, please move it there Admin if it doesn't belond here.

 

Simple question.  I want to upgrade soon when Zen 2 comes out,  new mobo new cpu and new ram.  My question is without formatting or clean install can WIndows 10 detect the new hardware and set it up and boot into Windows ? 

I have too much DAW sh*T and I wanna just pop in the new hardware and have Windows 10 boot up.  Or will I get a BSOD and what not ?

[TempestCatto]

Windows 7 would kill you for thinking that. Windows 10 shouldn't care at all. Linus and his team seem to switch boot drives commonly between their various test benches with various hardware without issue. I think you'll be fine.

[Origami Cactus]

When i switched from i5 6600 to r7 1700 my computer would bluescreen every time when booting, so i had to reinstall windows.

But that was a long time ago, so if you have the newest version of win 10 then that should be able to boot.

[Lurick]

I've done it a couple times without issue. Windows detects the new hardware and automatically installs the new drivers in most cases. You might need to go in afterwards and update them with the latest from the motherboard manufacturers website to make sure they're not just some generic drivers but I had good luck going from a 5930K to 7900X and all that went along with that upgrade without any issues.

 

The only issue I see is the Windows key might not activate if it's an OEM key and people report varying degrees of success with calling up Microsoft and using the phone activation method but usually it works at that stage.

[Fasauceome]

It depends a lot on the motherboard, the vast majority of the time it doesn't matter, but my current motherboard was not a fan of a preinstalled OS. It would not recognize a boot option without a fresh install.

[mxk]

As long as the windows 10 key that you have is transferable (a non OEM retail key) it should be fine. If it doesn't work when you try and you have issues like Origami Cactus, then reinstall.

[Wufflez]

It should be fine, but it'll help that you assign your computer to a microsoft account (@outlook, @live, @hotmail). When you boot up your system after the new hardware changes, you'd only need to sign in with your microsoft account to transfer your license over.

[Turtle Rig]

Thanks to each and everyone of you for replying back.  Im stoked now!

[steelo]

You *should* be okay, but again this is Windows we're talking about. Microsoft has some black magic going on with their OS in determining whether you're using the (same) computer. Sometimes you're fine, other times if you even add a graphics card it will want you to buy Windows again. Worse comes to worse, you can call Microsoft support and explain the situation. I had to transfer WIn10 from a Mac to a new PC I built and called to request a free license key, it was fairly painless.

[Turtle Rig]

1 minute ago, steelo said:

You *should* be okay, but again this is Windows we're talking about. Microsoft has some black magic going on with their OS in determining whether you're using the (same) computer. Sometimes you're fine, other times if you even add a graphics card it will want you to re-license the OS.

Thanks for the heads up.... Hopefully all will go well.

[steelo]

1 minute ago, Turtle Rig said:

Thanks for the heads up.... Hopefully all will go well.

Please see edit.

[aisle9]

20 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

Hey all thanks for reading my thread.  Im so sorry if this should have been posted in the Operating System section, please move it there Admin if it doesn't belond here.

 

Simple question.  I want to upgrade soon when Zen 2 comes out,  new mobo new cpu and new ram.  My question is without formatting or clean install can WIndows 10 detect the new hardware and set it up and boot into Windows ? 

I have too much DAW sh*T and I wanna just pop in the new hardware and have Windows 10 boot up.  Or will I get a BSOD and what not ?

I don't think I've ever seen Windows 10 flat refuse to boot after switching to a new mobo. That said, I have had driver headaches after the fact. If that happens, I've had success resetting Windows with the "keep my stuff" option selected. Yeah, you have to reinstall anything that was on your boot drive, but it's a pretty quick fix all things considered.

[HanZie82]

32 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

Windows 7 would kill you for thinking that. Windows 10 shouldn't care at all. Linus and his team seem to switch boot drives commonly between their various test benches with various hardware without issue. I think you'll be fine.

It does take a while but i have done this plenty under Windows 7 too.
Even from Intel to AMD, but i do wholeheartedly agree that its so much better on Win10. Not even 10 minutes if your PC is fast enough.
Windows 7 could need a couple reboots and some time. But it does work. XP on the other hand would just serve BSOD's till end of time.