There is a command that tells Windows that it is about to be imaged and next time it boots the hardware might be considerably different. Its called Sysprep. Its been years since I had to do this so I’m not sure if its still a thing in Windows 10.
Yes, but even using sysprep to “reset” the hardware settings you have on your systems you still might get random issues that appear out of nowhere.
I did that moving from a Q6600 to a 4790K on Windows 7 and task manager still reported 4 cores and 4 threads. Upon reinstalling never had issues.
i switched from z370 to b550 and had no issues except for win activation, uninstalled all mainboard specific drivers and tools before.
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Thanks for the replies. I am thankful for the feedback.
Wanted to give everyone here an update.
So I have copied and updated the OS drive to a higher capacity drive, and have made the switch. @HEXiT made the most concise explanation.
In terms of licensing, as long as I have a valid one, it is fine.
In terms of problems after what is basically an entire upgrade without reinstalling Windows, is so far some icons, like dropbox icon acting a bit funky, printer works but scanning doesnt.
In all, it works perfectly out of the box. But since this OS was installed back in 2015, I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of clutter and degraded performance masked by upgraded hardware, as I was moving from a 7700K to a 5950X. In short, it pretty much works.
For now, because of the rushed time I needed to get up and running, it was a choice I had to make to save time. I think realistically, if I have the time later in the month, I will just do a clean install anyway and make the most out of a declutter opportunity.
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Hello,
I am a Microsoft Certified but not employed by them. I am located in Germany and my outlines will represent german law, your local law may differ.
You can absolutaly swap everything without any need of reinstalling the OS. This includes motherboard and CPU. You, however, need to reactive the Windows OS or specificaly licence.
In technical terms, by changing Motherboard or CPU you partly change the hardware ID wich is used by Microsoft to verify the Hardware to Software boundary to grant you a legal usage.
As far as I can tell, and I’ve change many laptops by transfering SSDs, it is just as simple as connecting to the Internet and go to windows update settings in the UI, klick on “Activation” an the left side of the menu and it should be reactivated already or you may take manuel steps from there.
The next steps would be, install latest drivers for the new hardware and you’re basically good to go.
Hope this helps.
BTW: First post.
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Just saying I have done it a bunch, only time I run into issues as if it needs a certain driver loaded in order to complete the boot.
Not saying it’s impossible, just giving my experience because it can also not work
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