necessary to reinstall windows after installing new mb?

[yourdeardaniel]

title.

i'm putting in a new mobo and wonder if it's necessary to format and reinstall windows or can i just install mobo and let windows detect new hardware?

 

[CraigRT]

my rule of thumb is to always try it first.
then you will find out if it's necessary or not.
the answer is no, it's not necessary, but you'll find out what happens if you try to boot without a re-install. i find 75% of the time you can get by without a re-install. it also depends on platforms though, its iffy going from AMD/Intel, and vice versa, but Ive still had success that way too.

 

[MichaelD]

Everyone's mileage may (and does) vary, but it's always best to start out with a fresh install. Yes, it's a PITA, but you're assured of starting w/a clean registry. This way if something goes wrong, you can usually eliminate a few things right off the bat.

 

[BlindBartimaeus]

It used to be 75% worked...now I find 75% DON'T work and the above sentiment continues...you are better off reformatting anyhow. Hate giving bad news...but it is sound

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: BlindBartimaeus
It used to be 75% worked...now I find 75% DON'T work and the above sentiment continues...you are better off reformatting anyhow. Hate giving bad news...but it is sound

I somewhat agree it's not as easy anymore, and I fully agree it's always nice with a clean start.
but for people that don't really want to reformat, that's not the route they want... Just give 'er a try and you'll know what to do if your PC is giving you stop errors or something

 

[BlindBartimaeus]

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I've found if it's the same companies chipsets there is no trouble. I've moved between nF2 and nF3, and several different Via sktA chipsets with zero issues thanks to both companies unified platform drivers.

 

[Qu1cK]

ya i moved from a via to nforce and vice versa
i had 2 reinstall for both

 

[essasin]

you should at least repair windows to make sure everything is ok

 

[poppagene]

If the windows XP shipped with a new computer, it may not boot with a motherboard other than the original oem board. In this event, you can either do a clean install, or you can start the upgrade with the old board in place. After the windows XP upgrade is done gathering informaiton and is rebooting to install the upgrade, turn off the computer. Install the new motherboard. Turn on the power and let the upgrade continue.

 

[yourdeardaniel]

thanks for the replies.
i think i'll install it and see if i get any errors or performance issues then do a clean install of XP if necessary.