Changing motherboards on a windows 7 computer
In the old days, with Windows XP you could put in a new motherboard and do a repair with the XP install disk, Windows 7 seems to not let you do this. I have a computer that had a fried mother board and that board is no longer available, so installed a new one of different configuration. Windows 7 tries to do a repair but fails, Is there any way short of reloading the OS to update windows 7 on the new mother board? I have programs which require activation (Adobe CS4, Quark express, etc.) and reloding will be a large pain in the “you know what”. Thanks for any help, Garry
March 30th, 2010 5:24pm

This kind of behaviors depend on the hardware. Can you boot into the system? If not, I suspect that the boot record cannot be accessed. I suggest you insert the Windows 7 installation DVD and do Startup Repair. Windows 7 features - Startup Repair - Microsoft Windows Then, you should be able to boot into the system. I suggest you do In-place Upgrade after you boot into the system to repair the system. Your personal data and applications will not be removed. However I still suggest you back up important data before repair.Arthur Xie - MSFT
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April 1st, 2010 6:26am

Whether is xp or win 7, is not advisable as what you suggested. Fyi different mobo uses different chipset and drivers. It would be more appropriate to do a fresh install rather than repair. As for your programs, you could try doing a backup either installing the existing hd on a external usb case or as a slave drive and recover/backup the files from there
April 1st, 2010 7:31am

Thank you all for the help, I ended up just doing a fresh install. This is probably the best and safest solution.Again thanks,Garry
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April 15th, 2010 4:51pm

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