Cleaning Windows after hardware upgrade

[ryanjg11]

I usually do a clean reformat of a machine once I've upgraded the motherboard and video card, as I just did in this case. But I just don't have the time to do a full OS refresh. I know there are a lot of driver and registry cleaners out there, but I've always been hesitant to use them.

I've switched from an ATI card to an Nvidia card. Uninstalled all un-used drivers. Nothing seems wrong, and I'm not getting an errors. So, do I really need to do anything? Are there any "cleaner" apps out there that really work?

Thanks!

 

[Snowknight26]

Drivers for devices that are no longer present in the system aren't loaded. So realistically no, you don't need to do anything.

 

[PornoSatan]

I switched to a motherboard with a completely different chipset (from VIA to an Intel based chipset) and decided to boot up to see what would happen. Windows 8 just said "Readying devices" and booted without any problems whatsoever.

 

[bigdogchris]

I switched to a motherboard with a completely different chipset (from VIA to an Intel based chipset) and decided to boot up to see what would happen. Windows 8 just said "Readying devices" and booted without any problems whatsoever.

Windows 8 is built to switch between hardware on boot because of Windows 2 Go. Windows 7 and earlier isn't built this way and will just try to detect and use the integrated drivers. Yes, with 7 swapping motherboard and such can work, but I think it's a bad idea.

 

[/usr/home]

Just remove the old drivers, replace card and install new drivers.

I will swap a HDD into a new computer with Windows 7. Works well of you remove the drivers before swapping or do a sysprep generalize. I usually only do it with the same CPU type/fairly similar hardware. Like a Dell Optiplex 745 to a 760.