2

I may be replacing the motherboard in my HP desktop computer with an identical motherboard from HP. If I am reading correctly, I probably will not have to re-install Win 7 but will have to re-activate. Am I correct?

But I have another problem. I believe I also need to do a repair installation of Win 7 SP1. My original install disk is pre-SP1 and the media refresh install I was able to do has not fixed everything. If I un-install SP1 can I then do a repair install with my original disk? I can always run Windows Update later.

Or do I need a fresh copy of Win 7 with SP1 to do a repair install?

1
  • 1
    What is the reason why you want to do a repair install? What is your other problem? You should be able to just replace the motherboard, power on, configure your existing disk drive as boot disk, and let Windows do the rest. If you have boot problems, post here what the problem is. You won't be able to do a repair install unless you can boot into Windows.
    – Samir
    Apr 29, 2014 at 20:21

1 Answer 1

1

Do you need to reinstall Windows 7? Probably not! Not if the motherboard you are installing is the same type of motherboard as the one you had before.

What version of Windows do you need to perform a repair install? You will need the same Windows version as the one that's already installed. If you have installed SP1 for Windows 7 through the Windows Update service, that means your Windows version number has changed. So if your Windows 7 media does not have SP1 integrated, you will probably not be able to do a repair install with that.

Yes, you might get away with it, if you uninstall SP1 first. But you probably won't be able to uninstall SP1 if you have performed a clean up after installing SP1 and removed the service pack files (using cleanup tools like compcln.exe or dism.exe). In which case you will have to perform a clean install. You can perform a clean install with Windows 7 media and an OEM or full version license key. Upgrade keys will not work.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .