Reinstalling Windows

[Shadow Gamer]

So, I'm trying to reinstall windows with quiiite a bit of complications and I need some help.

 

1. I have my OS installed on an SSD, so I plan to reinstall the OS on my SSD and leave all programs and games on my HDD untouched. I heard the some applications cannot be kept because of registry files, and I saw somewhere a way in steam to easily include steam libraries from another hard drive, so would there be any other complications? Drivers I'd have to uninstall and then reinstall, but those are small, a gigabyte at most. 

 

2. The upgrade path has gone like this since the last reinstall(Chronologically): 

 -Graphics Card(Experiencing driver performance issues from before the new mobo, reason I'm reinstalling) 

 -New mobo+CPU(Went from AMD to Intel)

 

Funnily enough, the key validation and basically everything was running perfect after the replacement(Except for the graphics card, but that hadn't been working correctly for quite a while), but I'm not sure it'll work if I try to reinstall it. The old AMD mobo+cpu is in another PC, but it is running a different version of windows and the key have never been entered into it. 

 

Any help appreciate,

-Shadow

 

[Delicieuxz]

Be sure to back up My Documents, Pictures, Desktop, and whatever else you want from your Windows user account. Some of your Steam games might save their game states in the My Documents folders, while others might save them in the hidden %appdata% folder, which you can unhide in folder view settings.

 

No worries about the games themselves porting over to a new OS. If you keep their installation folders, and direct Steam to the backupped steamapps directory after reinstallation of the OS is completed, the games will register as installed in the Steam games list, and all you have to do is run them, and Steam will reapply any registry registrations, and do whatever else is needed, as if it's running the game for the first time.

 

If you're reinstalling Windows, you don't need to first uninstall drivers - everything will be wiped when the drive is formatted by the Windows install process, before writing the new Windows to the drive.

 

After installing Windows, start with your motherboard chipset drivers, if you need to install them. After the mobo is all set up, then I think it doesn't matter too much what order you install other drivers in. I think IRQ assignment is given priority based on installation order, and lower number IRQs are faster than higher number IRQs, but I haven't encountered an issue with device IRQ assignments. If you have a dedicated sound card, maybe you'd want to install that after mobo drivers. Generally, I think people don't run into problems with this stuff, though.

 

 

1. Backup:

 

Desktop

My Documents

Pictures

Music

Video

Games folder

Anything else

 

2. Reinstall Windows 

 

3. install motherboard drivers

 

4. install everything else and move all the backed-up folders back to where they were

 

5. enjoy a clean OS

[Shadow Gamer]

Be sure to back up My Documents, Pictures, Desktop, and whatever else you want from your Windows user account. Some of your Steam games might save their game states in the My Documents folders, while others might save them in the hidden %appdata% folder, which you can unhide in folder view settings.

 

No worries about the games themselves porting over to a new OS. If you keep their installation folders, and direct Steam to the backupped steamapps directory after reinstallation of the OS is completed, the games will register as installed in the Steam games list, and all you have to do is run them, and Steam will reapply any registry registrations, and do whatever else is needed, as if it's running the game for the first time.

 

If you're reinstalling Windows, you don't need to first uninstall drivers - everything will be wiped when the drive is formatted by the Windows install process, before writing the new Windows to the drive.

 

After installing Windows, start with your motherboard chipset drivers, if you need to install them. After the mobo is all set up, then I think it doesn't matter too much what order you install other drivers in. I think IRQ assignment is given priority based on installation order, and lower number IRQs are faster than higher number IRQs, but I haven't encountered an issue with device IRQ assignments. If you have a dedicated sound card, maybe you'd want to install that after mobo drivers. Generally, I think people don't run into problems with this stuff, though.

 

 

1. Backup:

 

Desktop

My Documents

Pictures

Music

Video

Games folder

Anything else

 

2. Reinstall Windows 

 

3. install motherboard drivers

 

4. install everything else and move all the backed-up folders back to where they were

 

5. enjoy a clean OS

My point is: most data I have is on a separate drive. Hard drive. 200GB worth of data. I read that some programs need registry entries: some can recreate them if they are missing, but others cannot be recreated. All of my documents, pictures, games, a large portion of my programs, and editing files are there. 

 

My other concern is the validation key. I've done windows reinstalls many times; it's not that that that bothers me, it's just the unusual elements that bother me. 

[techguru]

My point is: most data I have is on a separate drive. Hard drive. 200GB worth of data. I read that some programs need registry entries: some can recreate them if they are missing, but others cannot be recreated. All of my documents, pictures, games, a large portion of my programs, and editing files are there. 

 

My other concern is the validation key. I've done windows reinstalls many times; it's not that that that bothers me, it's just the unusual elements that bother me. 

you will have to reinstall programs

steam games can usually just be moved around

[LogicalDrm]

Some software will work from secondary drive ok. You won't see them in any listing of installed software. And you will loose all made configs and save data thats stored in OS drive. For that solution is to backup Documents and AppData folders. Then paste relevant ones back after new install.

I didn't quite understand the question of activation key. With Windows its one mobo per OEM key. Most other software allow different mobos but not multiple simultaneous activations per key.

[GoodBytes]

LoGiCalDrm is correct. Most programs (basically the simple ones), don't need to be installed on the system to run. They'll run, if you go and run the executable. They might need Visual Studio Redistributable files of a specific version to be installed, but beside that, it is fine. You won't have them in your start menu or installed programs list (as they are not installed). You can manually create the shortcut of the program for the start menu thought.

Most programs installer just act like a portable zip file where you don't need anything to extract the file (it does that itself), create a shortcut in the start menu, and register the program itself and uninstaller with Windows to show in the Programs & Features, panel. If it needs to install Visual Studio redistributable files, or DirectX version, the setup will handle this. (a well made game/program won't need this, it will be completely independent, but what can you do). More complex software like Office, or if the program have an activation/DRM system it will need to be installed, due the integration it does with the OS). Steam games have DRM on them, but the reason why you can move them and all that and be fine, is because Steam itself is the DRM manager, so if Steam is installed, and the game is in the correct folder, it will run just fine.

[Shadow Gamer]

Some software will work from secondary drive ok. You won't see them in any listing of installed software. And you will loose all made configs and save data thats stored in OS drive. For that solution is to backup Documents and AppData folders. Then paste relevant ones back after new install.

I didn't quite understand the question of activation key. With Windows its one mobo per OEM key. Most other software allow different mobos but not multiple simultaneous activations per key.

I'm trying to do multiple activations; but not simultaneous. The old mobo does not use the key, my current mobo does. For some reason, the key worked over mobos, so I am hopeful.