Windows 10: Moving win10 hard drive

I want to build another computer. Is it possible to move my existing Windows 10 hard drive to my new motherboard without having to format and reinstalling windows 10? Will everything boot up as before?*Rolleyes

:)

 

user directory

is it possible to move a user directory to different hard drive (not partition) on PM running Win10 Pro?

 

Frequently Asked Questions: Windows 10

No bait and switch. Unfortunate, yes.

The Win10 upgrade license was solely for the device that the upgrade was performed upon. Moving the hard drive from that device to another device(i.e. your newer computer) is outside bounds of the Win10 upgrade licensing thus the activation failure.

i.e. the free upgrade is tied to the device(original computer upgraded)
not a piece(the hard drive) of the device moved to another computer.

 

Yep. Did it myself. Windows 10 is very tolerant of detecting and handling new hardware. The biggest issue you will have is if the old computer was legacy bios and the disk is MBR and the new computer is UEFI which boots from GPT.

Windows 10 will not be activated automatically on the new motherboard, however.

 

Thanks. Will I be able to activate Win 10?

 

Purchase a new key. New motherboard=New computer. New computer= New key.

 

He doesn't have to purchase a new key if the existing product key is for a retail version of Windows.

If you have a retail Windows product key - but you will only be able to do it for free before July 29th if that retail product key is for Windows 7/8/8.1.

A problem you might run into if you are using a Windows 7/8/8.1 retail product key is that Windows 10 might come back and say the product key is in use on another computer. You have two options at that point - 1. Call Microsoft and hope they will activate it for you. 2. Temporarily install the Windows 7/8/8.1 the product key is for on either a new partition or a temporary hard drive, or a temporary virtual hard drive (VHD). Activate the Windows 7/8/8.1 over the phone. I recommend grabbing the genuineticket.xml file as a safeguard. Then you should be able to go back to the Windows 10 and activate it.

If you transfer a retail Windows product key, you cannot re-install that Windows back on the old computer. One product key = one install of Windows.