Install Windows 7 as a replacement for the motherboard.
Install Windows 7 as a replacement for the motherboard.
Hey everyone! I'm switching my motherboard and CPU from an Asus Rampage II Extreme with an i7 920 to an Asus X99 Deluxe and an i7 5820K. I've heard it's best to do a clean install of Windows 7. I'm not entirely sure how to start. A few months ago I cloned my old hard drive onto a Samsung 850EVO to save time on reinstalling everything, so I'm curious—should I back up my SSD first and then install Windows 7? If that's the plan, what tools should I use for backup? Or are there other ideas? Could I even boot from the SSD directly without reinstalling Windows? Thanks!
A fresh setup would be ideal. You’ll likely waste more effort copying files back and forth instead of installing cleanly from scratch.
Imo by hand, manually. I've shifted away from relying on Windows' default save spots for simpler backups. Most configurations are usually in Users\<name>\Documents or Users\<name>\AppData\Roaming. Steam games keep their own folder at \Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\ Then you can export savefiles/settings or just redo them. You might also take advantage of built-in sync features like Chrome and Firefox.