Swapping out motherboards, what to do for OS?

[krnmastersgt]

About to swap out my board (and CPU actually) to a newer set-up, in fact the entire system is on the side running with no drives in it currently. Options I have are listed in the poll so go ahead and vote, going to be swapping the drives in a few hours so whichever route has the highest votes is what I'll attempt first at least.

Additional info: Going from a Z77 to a Z77 board however many components will now be a different manufacturer, etc. Going from the Biostar TZ77A to an ASUS Maximus V Formula, so the chipset remains the same however the NIC is now an Intel instead of a Realtek (I think that's what my Biostar board is), the sound card while still Realtek is a different model, etc.

 

[Torn Mind]

Wipe out any and all hardware specific drivers. Replace them with Microsoft's generic drivers.

 

[aigomorla]

i assume u got an OEM key?

:\

If its a retail key, u can just redo a clean install.
I heard sometimes.. and i say sometimes.. if u email microsoft, and let them know your board required replacing, they might let you reactivate your OEM key.
I say sometimes....

 

[krnmastersgt]

i assume u got an OEM key?

:\

If its a retail key, u can just redo a clean install.
I heard sometimes.. and i say sometimes.. if u email microsoft, and let them know your board required replacing, they might let you reactivate your OEM key.
I say sometimes....

Got the key from a friend who qualified for that whole MSDN thing, while I qualify for a lot of the software the OS's were one I did not. Haven't seen him in a few days at least and I'm not sure he'd have the key on record anywhere, nor do I. Something I would have had to replace next year anyways but still have no way of extracting the key.

 

[Blain]

Install a free Linux distro if you don't have the funds to buy a Windows OS.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

You can use something like Magical Jelly Bean to find the install code and stuff like that.

 

[dawp]

i assume u got an OEM key?

:\

If its a retail key, u can just redo a clean install.
I heard sometimes.. and i say sometimes.. if u email microsoft, and let them know your board required replacing, they might let you reactivate your OEM key.
I say sometimes....

I've never had any trouble installing windows on a system I had replaced the motherboard on, usually the activation failed and a # was provided to call to get a new activation key. I've done this a number of times from win95 to win7 and always a oem license that I bought with hardware. usually the only question asked is how many systems is this license installed on. not sure if that applies to systems from dell,HP and so forth.

 

[aigomorla]

Got the key from a friend who qualified for that whole MSDN thing, while I qualify for a lot of the software the OS's were one I did not. Haven't seen him in a few days at least and I'm not sure he'd have the key on record anywhere, nor do I. Something I would have had to replace next year anyways but still have no way of extracting the key.

magic jellybean key finder as yamamoto says...

if u got a MSDN key... its a retail key.

 

[Mushkins]

magic jellybean key finder as yamamoto says...

if u got a MSDN key... its a retail key.

An MSDN key is NOT a retail key. Not at all. It is a fundamentally different license, regardless of how the media handles the installation.

A retail key can be used on any number of PCs, as long as its only one at a time.

An MSDN key may only be used for evaluation/educational/development reasons. As in "testing Windows 7 in an enterprise lab before deploying it to the whole company." They can be used for personal use in some instances as well. They cannot be used in a production environment to conduct any sort of business, at all, ever.

Just because the software activates does not make it legal. Know what you're getting yourself into.

 

[Hubb1e]

I'll offer other advice. Just pop in the new motherboard. You're going from Z77 to Z77 and the only thing that would create a problem when switching boards is the SATA drivers and since you're on the same chipset that won't be a problem. I've done this several times back in the Nvidia chipset days and it always worked without problems. Windows will detect the new hardware and prompt you to install them and might even do it automatically. If you want to be really clean, you can wipe the drivers you know you're changing first, but I couldn't do that since my system was dead and it was never an issue. The install kept working for years after that.

 

[aigomorla]

An MSDN key is NOT a retail key. Not at all. It is a fundamentally different license, regardless of how the media handles the installation.

A retail key can be used on any number of PCs, as long as its only one at a time.

An MSDN key may only be used for evaluation/educational/development reasons. As in "testing Windows 7 in an enterprise lab before deploying it to the whole company." They can be used for personal use in some instances as well. They cannot be used in a production environment to conduct any sort of business, at all, ever.

Just because the software activates does not make it legal. Know what you're getting yourself into.

a MSDN key is like a retail key.
He can reactivate it all he wants.

If he was given the key by his friend for personal use, its not a violation of any microsoft terms which was given. He isnt selling the machine... its a personal machine, hence he can treat his key like a RETAIL key.

I personally use the enterprise key i am given with my MSDN on my personal machines (i used to be a hardware reviewer / tester),
and i leave the retail keys for family members / friends if they need it.

i have done it this way for 5 yrs now on my MSDN account without microsoft giving me me any slack...

Its only if i decide to do something unscrupulous like sell my keys, where i get in trouble.
But poly was given a MSDN key.. its a working retail key forever... hence why he should just pull the key and recycle it on a new build.
It will validate the key validation server forever... unless ur friend has had his msdn account invalidated or terminated.... (not expired)
U get to keep your claimed retail keys if ur account expired.

 

[Blain]

a MSDN key is like a retail key.
He can reactivate it all he wants.

If he was given the key by his friend for personal use, its not a violation of any microsoft terms which was given. He isnt selling the machine... its a personal machine, hence he can treat his key like a RETAIL key.

"MSDN subscriptions are licensed on a per-user basis. One person can use the software to design, develop, test, or demonstrate his or her programs on any number of devices.
An MSDN subscription also allows the licensed user to evaluate the software and to simulate customer environments in order to diagnose issues related to his or her programs."

 

[mfenn]

An MSDN key is NOT a retail key. Not at all. It is a fundamentally different license, regardless of how the media handles the installation.

A retail key can be used on any number of PCs, as long as its only one at a time.

An MSDN key may only be used for evaluation/educational/development reasons. As in "testing Windows 7 in an enterprise lab before deploying it to the whole company." They can be used for personal use in some instances as well. They cannot be used in a production environment to conduct any sort of business, at all, ever.

Just because the software activates does not make it legal. Know what you're getting yourself into.

You're describing a TechNet key, not an MSDN key. MSDN keys can absolutely be used in production as long as the production in question is related to software development (like in many dev firms). You can use MSDN to host your TFS install. You cannot use MSDN to host accounting's MSSQL instance.

 

[mfenn]

As for the OP, the main thing to worry about is the SATA drivers. Since you're going Z77->Z77, there should be no problem as long as you keep the same operating mode (RAID, AHCI, or God forbid, legacy IDE).

 

[krnmastersgt]

Set up everything originally with AHCI, made sure I had it set to the same before I popped all the drives in and just did a drive transfer after uninstalling every motherboard and hardware driver I could find.

Everything seems to be in working order, only broken links are from the drive that won't be coming with the rest of the system as it will be a primary OS drive for the old machine for someone else. Had the re-activation message pop up once randomly last night but before I could even get my cursor over the bubble the message disappeared and has since disappeared. Not sure if it's just silently waiting to lock me out of my system or not, still have the license I bought sitting on the side just in case but hoping I won't need to use it in which case I can save the license for another project/machine in the future.

Tried key extraction software however while it is able to bring up my unique product ID, they don't seem to be able to extract the actual CD key that I would need to wipe the drive and reinstall so hoping it won't come to that. I for one usually prefer clean installs but don't really want to have to foot the bill of an extra OS to do so

 

[mfenn]

Magical Jellybean can definitely extract Windows 7 keys (not product ID). I've done it many times.

 

[XavierMace]

I've never had any trouble installing windows on a system I had replaced the motherboard on, usually the activation failed and a # was provided to call to get a new activation key. I've done this a number of times from win95 to win7 and always a oem license that I bought with hardware. usually the only question asked is how many systems is this license installed on. not sure if that applies to systems from dell,HP and so forth.

^^

This.