Can you change mobo/cpu/mem and still use your old windows 10 install?

W

WildMonkey

Gawd
Joined
Nov 1, 2007
Messages
887
As the title says. From a 2500K to a 8700K.
Can I swap out the mobo, cpu, and mem and plug in the old SSD with windows 10 and have it work?
Or is there a way to make it work after said change?
 
Last edited:
Windows has never really liked being yanked out of one hardware setup and put in another one. While they've gotten better since Win7, I'd still approach it with caution. It may fail, or may not quite work right. Consider a clean install.
 
 
WildMonkey said:
As the title says. From a 2500K to a 8700K.
Can I swap out the mobo, cpu, and mem and plug in the old SSD with windows 10 and have it work?
Or is there a way to make it work after said change?
Click to expand...

ddf9b7b9aaccc0c5975406393911f5a4.gif



but seriously, I've never encountered a situation where Windows worked properly when switching mainboard chipsets. Even going from something like Z170 to Z370 caused issues. It may work but it will be slow, unstable or finicky.
 
I've done replacements like that before with older versions of Windows and it has worked but I would never trust the install. Keep in mind, I'm talking about XP and previous which really, really didn't like it when you did that.

Unless you're talking about some sort of emergency backup of files and you have no other way to do it, you need to do a clean install. If you have any problems now or down the line you'll never really know what's causing them and that uncertainty is not worth the time you might theoretically save.
 
eh the issue I ran into swapping motherboards was Microsoft saw it as new hardware entirely and saw my license was tied to multiple systems, the click to continue stuff wasn't working, called Microsoft at like 11pm mst, their systems were down but they said it wouldn't be a issue, I could either call back... OR ….. change my systems name, log into my Microsoft account on their website, and delete the old system name...

so that's what I did and havnt had any issues since
 
KazeoHin said:
View attachment 76158


but seriously, I've never encountered a situation where Windows worked properly when switching mainboard chipsets. Even going from something like Z170 to Z370 caused issues. It may work but it will be slow, unstable or finicky.
Click to expand...

I've done it plenty of times, intel to intel and amd to intel, and never had an issues with the machine booting up and working fine. just need to re-activate windows.

My main PC with Windows 7 Ultimate went from a Q6600, to an i7 870, i7 2600k, i7 3770k, to a dual Xeon E5-2670, then upgraded to Windows 10 Pro.

Here you can see the oldest apps installed on that system.
Win-10-app-install-date2.jpg


this is the system info from when Windows 7 was on my machines,
win-install-dates.jpg
 
Why are people so lazy to just reinstall Windows? The potential headaches are not worth the hour it takes to reinstall everything. Back up your important files and do a clean install.
 
vegeta535 said:
Why are people so lazy to just reinstall Windows? The potential headaches are not worth the hour it takes to reinstall everything. Back up your important files and do a clean install.
Click to expand...

I never understood it either, but as my brother puts it, "re-installing windows is an all day affair. One hour for windows and 12 hours getting everything else back the way you want it."

I am pretty basic / minimalist so it really only takes me about 2 hours to be back up and running.
 
KarsusTG said:
I never understood it either, but as my brother puts it, "re-installing windows is an all day affair. One hour for windows and 12 hours getting everything else back the way you want it."

I am pretty basic / minimalist so it really only takes me about 2 hours to be back up and running.
Click to expand...
I am with your brother on this. The very last thing I want to do is re-install windows because it's such a pain in the ass. The re-install of windows alone is not the issue, it's all the other stuff that breaks by doing so. I have lots of software many of them requiring activation, some with limits, some without, some that are just plain serial numbers, some requiring deactivation first before being allowed to reactivate it on a new system, some requiring me to phone them to reactivate or worse some that will only do it via email that can take a day or more for a reply especially if you do it on a weekend. That doesn't even include the programs that won't free up the activation allotments unless you actually first uninstall it from the original system because deactivation is directly tied to the uninstaller and companies that went out of business and won't be usable anymore on a new system. So yeah reinstalling windows is not an easy thing for many people. When I migrated to my current rig I spent a weekend going through all the programs and games to figure out all that crap.

But I am not a minimalist. ;) I want every program I own immediately available to use at a click of an icon (even if that program isn't used often), and not waiting for it to install before it can run.
 
I just upgraded from an Intel 4770K to an AMD Ryzen 2700K. I did a clean install and tried to use my Microsoft Account to activate (did not work). I ended up calling, and after talking it thru with the MS rep, I used an original key that I got when I upgraded to WIN 8. (and it worked)
 
Updated my wife to my old FX-9590 from her FX-8350 and changed board and had to fight with the activation and network issues. My system going from FX-9590 to my Ryzen 5 2600X with new board and RAM required exactly jack and shit on Linux. Just kept working.
 
Yes. Have changed all three at same time and Win10 reconfigured after boot. Then asked for my PIN. No problems.
 
SuperSubZero said:
Windows has never really liked being yanked out of one hardware setup and put in another one. While they've gotten better since Win7, I'd still approach it with caution. It may fail, or may not quite work right. Consider a clean install.
Click to expand...

Doesn't really need to like it, you just need to get far enough to activate with your hardware signature. Then you can reinstall from scratch and maintain activation.
 
I just upgraded my MB/Mem/CPU/SDD. Did a clean install of Win10. It wouldn't accept me choosing the online activation. I could sign into my account, and select the license I wanted to activate, but it kept bugging out. First person I talked said I had to "Talk to the company I bought the PC from".... ummmm.. it's a custom PC you dork. Transferred over to another group. Had to remote in because the phone activation window wasn't coming up. Finally got it registered with a key. Took me about 25-30 min total.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top