Can you interchange SSDs between system with the same OS?

[Tcrumpen]

When i was growing up back in the 90s you couldn't very easily take a hard drive out of one machine and put it into another and have it work fine (Back when imaging wasn't a thing) therefore re-installation took ages; however things have improved drastically since then yet i've never actually discovered whether you can basically do a like for like swap

 

I was thinking about selling my PC a while ago to a friend who needed it and getting myself a new one and i was just wondering whether i could take my OS hard drive out of it (which is a SSD) and just place it into another case (albeit with a different motherboard) and have it boot fine; both would be using Windows 10 by the way

[Equilibrium_FOOL]

You can, however the better way is to start fresh to avoid driver and registry errors.  If you have a third drive copy all of the important data to it, and do a clean install on the ssd.

[TwentyOnePenguins]

Well, in my experience, it's pretty random. I've had it work and not work. (I'm not very good at this kinda stuff xD) But even if you would get it to work, I'd recommend reinstalling, so you won't get any hiccups. Are you building a new one or buying a prebuilt?

[ImNotThere]

it will automatically detect new hardware and automatically install new drivers

 

however its a good habit to reinstall windows when changing motherboards

[Dreaper]

14 minutes ago, Tcrumpen said:

When i was growing up back in the 90s you couldn't very easily take a hard drive out of one machine and put it into another and have it work fine (Back when imaging wasn't a thing) therefore re-installation took ages; however things have improved drastically since then yet i've never actually discovered whether you can basically do a like for like swap

 

I was thinking about selling my PC a while ago to a friend who needed it and getting myself a new one and i was just wondering whether i could take my OS hard drive out of it (which is a SSD) and just place it into another case (albeit with a different motherboard) and have it boot fine; both would be using Windows 10 by the way

It depends some times you will have to contact microsoft and show proof of ownership of the previous version i.e your old mobo with windows on it, now the OS is tied to the mobo you have so sometimes you will have to buy a whole new copy or contact microsoft for a transfer, at the same time some people have gotten lucky and didnt have to do anything because it just worked. In my experience its hit or miss.

[JCerna]

Windows 10 was designed this way and in most cases it works great. On the pro and enterprise versions you can even make a Windows to go USB and there are instructions on how to install on any drive. However the only issue that I found is graphics and audio fully working. The reason is that most high end video cards install utilities with the drivers and that can create issues if you move from one system to the next. I would not recommend it unless all your doing is word, excel, browse the net type of things. You can also use Gandalfs WinPE and use that to move about machines.