Motherboard upgrade

[sylatex 0]

Hi all,

I'm relatively new to flight simming and started with my very low end home pc (i3 4130 with gtx750ti). I have since upgraded my GPU, CPU, PSU, RAM basically everything with the exception of the mobo to something slightly better. I'm running i7 4770k and a gtx 980. I've just got a gigabyte ga-z97p-d3 mobo and a corsair hyper 212x with the intention of performing a mild overclock. My question is would I need to do a fresh install of all my scenery, aircrafts and utilities or is there a simpler method. I have installed several add ons, over 190gb worth and dread the idea of having to install them all over again. Also what are the licensing implications, I know fsdreamteam records licence on the system I'm guessing others might to. Would I have issues migrating these licences over to my new system? Thanking you for any help or suggestions 

[David Vega 348]

I just finished upgrading to a new computer.  While I'm not done re-installing everything, I've had no problems downloading and installing everything that I've purchased.  Some vendors limit the number of downloads but would reset the counters if you reach out to them.  In your case, I don't think you would have to reinstall everything, only the items that may be affected by the hardware change.  

[Jim Young 2,356]

If you change your Motherboard, you will have to reinstall Windows.  This means a complete reinstall of P3D and many of your addons that have registry entries to run.  For instance, you do not have to reinstall Photoscenery.  Believe Orbx/FTX stuff will work too but it is best to simply reinstall everything.  Whenever I upgrade like that I reinstall addons slowly.  No need to rush and get all 5000 addons installed right away.

EDIT:  Here's a link to reactivating Windows after a major hardware upgrade - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change.  So reinstalling Windows and all of your addons may not be required.

[dmarques69 316]

28 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

If you change your Motherboard, you will have to reinstall Windows. 

Not exactly true Sir...reactivate windows yes, reinstalling depends...i had a dual experience with mobo changes and windows, one bad in windows 7, after some errors and crashes i decide it to reinstall, and a good one with windows 8 (mobo, cpu and ram change) just reinstalled the new mobo chipset drivers and had it for 2 years with no issues.

[sylatex 0]

Thanks for your reply. I found online a guide on how to reactivate a retail copy of windows. Can you suggest a guide if there're any I can follow to achieve this simpler method. I've been searching online and found nothing so far. I would obviously reinstall the entire package if necessary but only if absolutely necessary. 

[Jim Young 2,356]

8 hours ago, dmarques69 said:

Not exactly true Sir...reactivate windows yes, reinstalling depends..

Did you not see my edit???

[Sabre57 46]

Check out the windows utility called sysprep. Sysprep is used to prepare a system for the first time use of a PC. I recently used this for a new motherboard myself and did not have to reinstall either windows or prepar3d. I did need to reactivate windows and reinstall other minor programs but overall I would do this again. 

However, YMMV. Its worth a shot if it saves you a lot of time reinstalling everything.

If your original pc was branded; dell, hp, etc. windows may not work due to licensing agreements between the mfg and ms. So this may not work.

The basic steps for sysprep are:

1 get your new mb

2 run sysprep, look up how to run it online and follow the instructions

3 shutdown the pc and do not turn it on

3 swap out your old for the new mb

4 start up the pc with the new mb

5 follow the setup instructions. Windows will think the is a first time startup of the device and take you through that process.

 

[dmarques69 316]

2 hours ago, Jim Young said:

Did you not see my edit???

I saw now :)

[sylatex 0]

Thanks guys much appreciated. Thanks Sabre57, I'll go with this method. Thanks again