Windows 10: Best practice to move existing system drive to new motherboard/CPU?

UnfortunatelyI am starting to feel the upgrade itch. Its been over 4 years and a new series of Intel desktop CPUs has launched.

All I might change are CPU and motherboard---not RAM.

Im seriously considering NOT doing my normal clean install, partially out of curiosity about the process, but mostly because Id hate to spend the hours required to reconfigure Windows and dozens of applications.

Current setup is Win 10 Home Retail updated to version 2004 system drive (2.5 inch SATA SSD), with all data on totally separate drives. Strictly UEFI, GPT, no MBR. No graphics card. Starting with an Intel 6600K and ending with something like a 10600 or 10700, probably non-K. From an AsRock Z170 series board to most likely Gigabyte, possibly Asus, either H470 or Z490.

I will of course make a fresh Macrium image of all partitions on the system drive before beginning.

With my limited understanding, I guess I could do any of these 4 things:

1: simply move the drive to the new hardware with no preparation and see if it will boot.

2: use Sysprep to generalize the drive, shut down, and then move it.

3: walk through my programs list in settings/apps and Device Manager and uninstall anything that looks to be driver-ish or motherboard-specific.

4: something else. Provide details.

What is the best practice as of today? There may be a tutorial, but I couldnt find it in my fumbling.

Im generally interested in the least frustration and I realize I may have to reactivate.

As I understand it, I should assure that my current install is linked to my MS account. I think it is already, although I have a local installation.

Not sure this is in the right forum, so move if required.

:)

 

cpu upgrade - w10 wont boot

Replacing disks is no problem.

In my experience, replacing motherboards almost always results in crashes.

You could run this experiment:

• Create an image of your System partition. Store in on an external USB disk.
• Insert the new CPU.
• Install Windows. I bet that it will work flawlessly.
• Restore the image you created in Step 1.

 

Windows 10 New Hard Drive New MOtherboard

I am replacing motherboard cpu and memory and had windows 10 drive that originated from windows 7. How can install windows 10 on new hard drive

 

[FS][US] CPU, NForce4 skt 754 motherboard (with PCI-express slot, rare!), DDR RAM

bump, CPU's stepping is now listed.