Upgraded computer; didn't have to reinstall windows. (motherboard, work, memory)

[Wartrace]

I had a power supply failure. I figured while I was replacing that a new video card would be nice. Having more money than brains I decided "What the heck, might as well replace the CPU/motherboard and memory".

I figured I would have to reinstall Windows and lose the data on my boot disk. I have always had to do that in the past.

I turned it on for the first time and everything worked fine after a number of updates Windows prompted me to install it. So much easier than the old days when you were forced to reinstall. All I had to do was reactivate Windows using my Windows account.

[ReblTeen84]

This isn't new. Windows 7 wasn't "bad" at it, Windows 10 and 11 are much better at it.

As long as there's a network driver, Windows can grab most, if not all, of the other drivers needed online and problem solved. It's cleaner to reinstall Windows, of course, but not totally necessary anymore.

I've done a couple motherboard swaps. I've only reinstalled Windows about half the time, and that's only because I wanted to start fresh.