I'm thinking of upgrading my 6yo computer current on Window 11. It's more like a replacement because I only want to keep my hard disks and VGA card. But I really don't want to reinstall the OS and all the software. Is it possible? I hope I can hear from someone who is 100% sure or have done it before.
Do I Have to Reintall OS if I Do Hardware Upgrade?
goliath on 27/06/2024 - 01:09
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after win10, transplant HDD with OS into another machine is much much less likely to cause trouble, but there's never a 100%
all you can do is to try it and hope for the best.
100% sure you'll have some conflicts…it's a built in feature of the OS.
You are changing most of the core components - the motherboard including the unique identifier on the network hardware, the CPU, the RAM. Its not a "hardware upgrade". Its a new computer. All the software that is licensed to your old computer will not be licensed to your new one.
Microsoft used to have a points-based system for allowing "upgrades". If the upgrades involved components that added up to too many points it was a new computer, with the number of points allowed increasing as time went by. Maybe someone knows whether it still works similarly. Aside from the issue of whether the upgrade is allowed, there's the issue of whether it works. Windows has gotten better at detecting hardware changes and installed new correct drivers. But it is still possible to hit it with so many changes it can't cope. You can do a test run to see if it can.
Microsoft used to have a points-based system for allowing "upgrades".
This isnt how it works. But yes, licensing will be an issue. You can call Microsoft and explain though and they will sort it out for you.
I can't test-run it without buying new - that's the purpose of the post. If I have to reinstall everything I perhaps won't bother to upgrade, as I've installed so many softwares in the last 6,7 years, a few of which are not easy to find any more
How long do you expect a 6 year old mechanical drive to last?
It seems that you think 6 years is too long for a mechanical drive. Well, it lasts about 2,500,000 hrs which is about ~285 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive
@goliath: Yep… extrapolated statistical data from a few weeks of continuous use for a $500 enterprise drive .. totally relevant.
I upgraded about a month ago. Running Windows 10 on a 6700k system and upgraded CPU, motherboard and memory to a AMD 7950x. The only hiccup was getting the same M.2 drive to boot Windows on the new motherboard using legacy bios.
There could be issues with drivers and things. But Windows should have enough generic drivers to get you going and then hopefully you can install the proper vendor drivers once you are up. As previous poster mentioned, there could be an issue if changing between traditional BIOS and UEFI, as the system will be unable to boot. Otherwise you could run into an issue with storage drivers. Not sure if MS is not bundling the Intel NVME storage driver, but this was (maybe still is) an issue. You could potentially install it in advance to avoid issues.
yeah just do it, computers are pretty tolerant these days