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I'm going to be upgrading my motherboard, CPU and memory very soon. Everything else about the computer is staying the same, but I'll be changing from a core 2 duo CPU to an i5 2600K, plus changing to a totally different motherboard, etc.

I don't want to have to reinstall Windows 7 when I do it - what do I need to do to make sure the install goes smoothly? Should I uninstall old drivers, etc, before I swap out the parts?

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I have tried, but in vain :(. – crucified soul Jun 18 '11 at 12:42
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5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

Windows will almost certainly install drivers for the new hardware automatically with no trouble, making the change easy. You will need to remember that substantial hardware changes will result in Windows deactivating (to prevent someone copying the disk image to many different machines). The rules by which a significant hardware change are detected are somewhat complicated but known, see here.

On never versions of Windows activation after a significant hardware change works just like activation of a new install - it will automatically attempt to activate over the internet. Internet activation will fail if the license has previously been activated too frequently*. If this happens, you will need to call the 1-800 number that Windows will give you and speak with an activation rep, who will manually give you an activation code, generally without any questions asked.

(*) for Windows XP this was more than once in the last 120 days. I believe this has changed in Vista/7, I do not know what the new rule is.

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up vote 2 down vote

Windows may boot with the new board out of the box, but it is possible that you will have to massage it go get it to work. If it does work, you should still update all your drivers from the motherboard's web site. If it doesn't the easiest way to do it is re-install and pick "upgrade": This will keep all your programs intact, but replace the hardware drivers and any other faulty registry settings. Even after the upgrade, update your drivers.

If you try to upgrade to your same OS, but are not given the option (grayed out), it is likely because your original disk is older than your current service pack level. In that case, you will need to slip-stream your original OS disk to add your service pack level or newer. You can search how to slip-stream here as it comes up often.

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up vote 2 down vote

There's one important thing not covered so far.

Activation.

WGA/WAT is going to complain if you change too much hardware. Nobody knows what the threshold is, but if you cross it, Microsoft support has been known to be fairly lenient in manually allowing you to re-activate regardless.

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While you are correct that he will probably have to activate, there is no question of Microsoft giving him problems. The worst case is that it will not activate over the Internet, he calls, and tells them that he put in a new mother board and other parts, and they will give him a code to manually enter to activate. This is at worst a minor inconvenience, but guaranteed to work provided he is not trying to activate a known-pirated copy. – KCotreau Jun 18 '11 at 2:21
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up vote 1 down vote

Acronis Universal Restore should be able to do it.

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up vote 1 down vote

As long as the HDD housing Windows is left untouched you should be fine.

Bring in all your new parts and hook them all up. Windows 7 should automatically detect some new hardware and find/install the drivers for you. If not, go to the vendor's website and look for the downloads page. They usually have the drivers there.

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