P67A-UD3-B3 to z97x Gaming 7. OS reinstall required?

[pauleden]

Guys,

My venerable old P67 is misbehaving a little and so I've decided to replace it and upgrade at the same time. I've splashed out on a Z97X Gaming 7 and a 4970K.

I'm wondering if I will need to reinstall the OS when I swap the motherboard and CPU. I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64, but it's the retail version. I've reinstalled using this before and it activated just fine, but I'm thinking I could save myself a day of work if the OS won't need to be reinstalled.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Paul

[absic]

Hi Paul,

save yourself a lot of grief and do a clean install of the OS.

I know it takes a long time, especially downloading and reinstalling all of the Windows updates & service packs and your programs but, believe me, it will actually be quicker in the long run and any issues you may run into will be easier to troubleshoot.

[pauleden]

Hi Paul,

save yourself a lot of grief and do a clean install of the OS.

I know it takes a long time, especially downloading and reinstalling all of the Windows updates & service packs and your programs but, believe me, it will actually be quicker in the long run and any issues you may run into will be easier to troubleshoot.

Thanks for the reply, absic.

Under normal circumstances similar to these, I'd always reinstall. The current motherboard (the P67) was my first Gigabyte board after a long series of Asus, so I had no choice, the motherboard drivers meant a reinstall was essential. This is fine, I've done it before a number of times.

I was just wondering if there was cunning, proprietary Gigibyte system for helping with moving between chipsets. Deep down, I know you're right, of course, a fresh OS install is a lovely, cathartic thing.

Follow-up question then, I've read some stuff about preparing the OS for being reinstalled. This article, in particular.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/making-sure-windows-7-will-boot-after-changing-the-motherboard/

It's not entirely clear if that applies to a complete from scratch reinstall though. I mean, is there something I should do to let Windows and MS know that although this is a retail version of Windows, it's still essentially the same PC and the motherboard is changing only because it's defective/worn out?

[absic]

I've not tried the method that you have linked to myself, mainly because I haven't heard of it before, but the theory sounds good.

If I were running Windows 7 these days I would try it, just to see if it works as it says.