Reformat necessary for "lateral" motherboard swap?

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
29,767
33
81
Should I reformat just to swap out a motherboard? All other equipment remains the same...

From

GIGABYTE GA-Z87MX-D3H mATX Z87 (Haswell)

to

GIGABYTE GA-B85N mITX B85 (Haswell)

(Perhaps the latter would need a different Intel LAN driver? But both have Intel NICs.)
 

code65536

Golden Member
Mar 7, 2006
1,006
0
76
Note that DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES is not necessary with (and has no effect on) Windows 8 (or Windows XP; not sure about Vista). I have no idea why they made that stupid change of hiding non-present devices on 7, but at least they reversed themselves in 8.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
10,198
126
Note that DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES is not necessary with (and has no effect on) Windows 8 (or Windows XP; not sure about Vista). I have no idea why they made that stupid change of hiding non-present devices on 7, but at least they reversed themselves in 8.

No, XP had the same thing. I don't remember what the environment variable was for XP though, it might have been different.
 

code65536

Golden Member
Mar 7, 2006
1,006
0
76
No, XP had the same thing. I don't remember what the environment variable was for XP though, it might have been different.

Oh, yes, you're right. I had forgotten about it because with XP, I was using a custom slipstreamed image that had this setting baked in; I just checked my source files, and it was there (same name, too). Oops.

Well, it's definitely not needed for 8, though, which is still a step in the right direction.