I am just in the process of upgrading my current system (Asus p7p55 D-le / 8GB DDR3 1600MHz, Core i5 - 750) to the following setup.

 

Asus P8Z77 DE-luxe, 16 GB DDR3 x 1600 Mhz, Intel Core i7 - 3770K.

 

I run Win 7 x 64 Ultimate and will continue to do so if possible.

 

My question is - will it be possible to disconnect everything and just have the original c: Drive connected to the new components and upgrade all my hardware without having to do a fresh install of Win 7 or FSX?

 

FSX is on a separate drive, which I will reconnect if all goes well upgrading chipset etc. (My FSX is over 200GB and I am not even sure I could find all of the original software add ons.)

 

I recall upgrading from an Intel D101GC with P4 running Win 7 to my current set up without the need to reinstall Win 7.

 

My theory is that if all that is connected at boot up is the drive with the O.S then it may just work by installing all of the new Motherboard drivers. Once this is done, I can piece by piece reconnect the additional hard drives and graphics cards.

 

I wonder if anyone has done similar? If I disconnect everything then boot into my current set up, uninstall all related drivers for this motherboard and addons, shut down, then replace new MB and RAM/Processor, then reboot and load up new drivers.

 

Anyone see a problem thanks?

I found it was always best to do a fresh install on a new machine unless it was an emergency thing like recovering data or something. If the system will be used for FSX my vote is a fresh install. Then you will know step by step what is going on without having to second guess as to why things might not be working correctly.