upgrading hardware without reinstalling windows?

[Megamuffin]

So next week im getting a new motherboard and new CPU... and i was just thinking now that there might be driver issues if my old drivers are still on my pc, so i was wondering do i need to reinstall windows (would prefer not to..)

upgrading from AMD athlon II x3 455 to a AMD FX 6300
and from a MSI 440GMA-E45 to a MSI 970A-G46

so wondering what is the best thing to do or surely there must be a way to uninstall drivers...

 

[LetsDance]

You must reinstall windows and all your apps again - enjoy the day loading programs.

 

[Surv0]

yep, full reinstall of windows is needed.

 

[Grouter]

Windows 7 can often take this in it's stride. Try it first, you may be surprised.

 

[Willy Strong]

Just uninstall all the device drivers from Device Manager. Make everything standard. Pop in new hardware, boot up, install new drivers.

 

[howardb]

Just uninstall all the device drivers from Device Manager. Make everything standard. Pop in new hardware, boot up, install new drivers.

What simm-card said - I've done this may times with Win 7 over the years as I've upgraded hardware. Remove ALL drivers, add/swop hardware, boot up. You may have to re-activate Windows again - just tell them your mobo died...

 

[KleinBoontjie]

I upgraded in January from a Athlone II to a FX 8320 and had to re-install Windows. I tried all the tricks, even 'sysprep', nothing worked.
My advice, backup, install hardware, format and install Windwos.......It's better to start with a clean slate anyway.

 

[charlh]

You could try Hirens boot cd. There is an option to remove all existing drivers. When you reboot windows after that, all drivers will have to be reinstalled from your cd's etc. I have done this on a PC at work where I had to replace a blown motherboard with a totally different make and chipset. Windows refused to reinstall/repair from the cd without formatting the drive, but after I used Hirens CD, all was OK. I did not need to reinstall the OS. But that was on XP though, I have never tried it with Windows 7.

 

[CamiKaze]

I would recommend a fresh install of windows.

 

[battletoad]

Change your IDE driver to the standard windows driver (should not be the manufacturer's RAID driver), should be something along the lines of "Standard ATA/ATAPI...". Google it for more info.

I use one system image on HP Compaq, Lenovo, Sun Microsystems boxes with the above change. Obviously other drivers are installed in the image, just the standard IDE driver should be used.

Your windows license will probably need to be reactivated. Call them up and tell them your mobo fried.

Otherwise if you still get blue screens
1 Boot from windows cd and repair boot, else
2 reinstall if 1 does not work. <--- Which is what you should do in any event