Can i continue to use my existing windows 7 installation after upgrading my PC?

[quicky008]

I'm planning to upgrade my computer's CPU,motherboard and ram pretty soon.But the problem is,i installed windows 7 on my current pc a few months earlier and I do not want to reinstall it all over again after performing the necessary upgrades.Can i continue to use my existing windows 7 installation on my new pc(i intend to reuse my existing 1TB HDD) or will it cause the system to crash/hang or malfunction in any other way?

I've installed several games and applications on my current pc and it'd be really difficult and cumbersome for me to reinstall everything from scratch after upgrading my pc-is there any way to continue using the existing version of windows just by installing the necessary drivers for the cpu,ram and motherboard?

 

[dashing.sujay]

You can use but reinstall it as the drivers would be of old hardware. So, driver conflict may occur.

 

[quicky008]

Thanks but is there any way to reinstall only the O.S. by keeping all the existing games and applications intact?

 

[dashing.sujay]

^I don't think so.

 

[clmlbx]

actually I will have to say no.. It is highly recommend to re-install every thing.. you are changing hardware!

If you don't you might face problem.. even windows initializes hardware before install .. so even if you remove all external drivers. their might be something that will conflict and create lot of troubles for you.

anyway if you are firm then you can use driver sweeper to remove drivers

 

[whitestar_999]

there are ways to restore existing os to a different hardware but is not recommended especially if you are a gamer.for a corporate/normal usage with some minor issues it can be done but if you have many games/fancy applications installed there may be a lot of issues.for the peace of mind in long run start afresh & for added peace of mind create a system image(using free versions of paragon backup recovery or macrium reflect) of your C drive after installing win7 & all games/applications so in future you don't have to reinstall on the same hardware for any reasons.

P.S.always test the backup image by restoring it successfully using bootable media(usb option offered by both softwares above) after creating it.

 

[Cool Buddy]

When I upgraded my PC, I tried various things, but the old installation did not boot. So I would say, even if you are able to boot, there is no chance it will run smoothly. I would suggest you backup the save games etc. before you upgrade and then reinstall everything. It is time consuming, but there is no other way.

 

[coderunknown]

tried my HDD (Win7 installed) on friends PC and it didn't boot showing some missing files or just BSOD at Windows startup.

 

[whitestar_999]

it is possible to do it but usually not recommended.the main point is to prevent new/changed system's access to old HAL(hardware abstraction layer) & modify it on the fly on the new system(which will prevent the BSODs)& once it is done next step is to remove old drivers & install new ones.there are softwares that can do this(& if you look hard enough you can even find free ones).

 

[dashing.sujay]

I exchanged one HDD multiple times on two machines simultaneously while troubleshooting something and it was working perfectly fine.

 

[whitestar_999]

if the hardware is similar enough it will work(e.g.athlon II & phenom II,core2duo&core2quad etc).

 

[dashing.sujay]

^I agree, but mine was 915+P4 vs C2D+945.

 

[whitestar_999]

maybe differences in HAL for intel processors is not much.also 915 & 945 are not that much different unlike say 945 & H61.