Windows activation after Mobo change

Software & Operating Systems Windows
1

My friend bought a pre-built pc a few years ago and his motherboard failed. He will be buying a new board and new cpu next month. I will be helping him in installing, but i have never dealt with this exact situation where i will be re-using everything else, and just swapping out the motherboard and CPU.

what will i see when i hook the HDD up to the new board? will windows ask for a product key? will it even work? i am prepared, and know how, to install windows (most likely install Digital River iso of win7 home premium, which is what he had, via usb) but am not too knowledgable on the whole "new mobo + product key" think.

 

what are our options? 

i heard that once windows is re-installed, a simple call to windows will get them to activate the system with the new board. is this true?

 

any help would be greatly appreciated =)

2

If it wont activate after doing a fresh reformat.then you should call microsoft and reset the key for activation.if you need to get the serial from the current installation i would recommend using http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/.i'm pretty sure if you install a new motherboard you will have to do a fresh reformat.i know you can swap out cpu's and not reformat.now you might be able to make a system iso with windows backup and recover that way but i think you need to do it on the current motherboard windows 7 was originally installed on.i'd recommend a fresh install anyways it will be like having a brand new pc.tell your buddy to get a backup hd if he has alot of games that way he can swap the hd from pc to pc and not loose his games.now some people install there content on an ssd for the fast read and write access.most of these times people have fast connections.

3

Had the same problem myself, and calling microsoft to activate worked a charm.

4

oh and if you want to do a bloat ware free window 7 install microsoft offers sp1 iso's of windows 7.

http://www.w7forums.com/threads/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads.12325/

 

And to make a bootable usb stick just grab the windows usb tool 

http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe

 

Page location for usb tools http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

5

Last thing i'd highly recommend getting the iso from microsoft anyways.it comes with sp1 it saved me alot of downloading when i had to restore tons of computers.without sp1 there is so many updates.

6

hey, thanks a bunch, that's exactly what i will do then =) and that is where i was going to get the windows 7 iso too lol

much appreciated!

ill talk to him about getting a samsung 840 evo. only $100, but i doubt he will go for it lol

7

So.... i helped him through the hardware install of the new motherboard/cpu (asus z87-plus and 4670k) and the windows install via usb drive. and even had him update the bios. all went well, however, he has 3 days to activate windows, so he called, and after an hour on hold they told him he needed to buy a new product key. What the hell?

should he recall tomorrow and try to get a person with a better attitude?

any options would be greatly appreciated.