What to do with Windows when moving to a new motherboard?

[maphi100]

Dear users. 

I am planning to upgrade my PC's Motherboard, CPU and RAM, keeping my Graphics Card and hard drives (and case and psu). 

I originally got the PC 6 years ago pre built , including a windows installation (win8.1 at that time I believe but obviously I upgraded to win10 as soon as it was possible and free). 

Now I'm not sure what to do with windows when I upgrade to my new hardware and want to keep my current installation. I read somewhere that it should work without any problems but that still leaves me with the question if I can transfer my license to the new hardware and wether I should remove the key from my current mobo if I plan to sell it or build it into another PC. 

I have already ordered the components which I considered a reasonable upgrade within my budget. (See below)

If you guys have done this before or have any tips to make this progress as smoothly as possible I'd be very thankful. 

Greetings from Germany, Philipp

 

Current specs:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3

CPU: AMD FX-6300

RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600MHz (apparently nameless)

Graphics: Radeon R9 380

Hard drives: Boot drive (Crucible 250GB MX500), Steam Drive (Toshiba 1000GB DT01ACA100)

 

Planned upgrade:

Motherboard: MSI B450 Gaming Plus Max

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600

RAM: 16GB DDR4 3200 MHz G.Skill Ripjaws V 

Graphics: (see above)

Hard drives: (see above)

[aDoomGuy]

You CAN transfer the licence if the licence is a RETAIL version.

 

Open up CMD as administrator (search from start menu choose run as admin..) and run command

slmgr /dli

 

In the window that opens it should display either RETAIL, OEM or VOLUME.

 

Transferring an installation should work but it is not something I recommend. It should work however as Windows should download the drivers it needs but you may possibly end up with driver issues. I put in my old OS drive from my old PC into my new one and it booted up just fine.

 

EDIT: My old PC was also AMD FX BTW.  

[Manjit73]

You can if you use the same drive 

[maphi100]

Thanks for the quick response. So apparently I have the retail version. 

51 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Transferring an installation should work but it is not something I recommend.

Is there any reason in particular why you wouldn't recommend? The last time I reinstalled was about a year ago and I'd like to avoid spending a week downloading games again. 

 

[aDoomGuy]

45 minutes ago, maphi100 said:

Thanks for the quick response. So apparently I have the retail version. 

Is there any reason in particular why you wouldn't recommend? The last time I reinstalled was about a year ago and I'd like to avoid spending a week downloading games again. 

 

There may (or may not) be driver issues but as I said it should work. I recommend reinstalling clean because then you know there will be no conflict with old drivers that may remain in the file structure or registry. Also if your games are from Steam and are on another drive then you can simply add the library folder back into Steam client. Origin also have this functionality but it kept on crashing last time I tried to use it so that's definitely not recommended to try. Anyway, go ahead and just stick your drive in there, it SHOULD work fine.

 

EDIT: Retail version can be moved as many times you want according to Microsoft.