I pull HD"s and install Win7 regularly when OD/flash won't boot, and upon return to old machine with all new hardware (to the OS) except HD, it changes out all of the drivers in an impressive show but never has a "breakdown."
In fact performance has never been compromised in the slightest, which was the biggest surprise as the first time I ran chkdsk, HD scan, sfc, etc. expecting disaster.
....Not a hiccup.
Maybe you thought the cascading drivers show was a breakdown?
So you're saying that you swap hardware and no problems? I'm on 64bit Windows 7 if that matters. I know a few years ago 64bit OS was a little more "picky" with drivers, but that seems to be a non-issue lately.
Tomorrow I will try to swap mobo, cpu, and ram and see if the new system will boot. If not, I'll be doing another clean install. I've installed and configured 8 new computers recently with Windows 7 (small business owner) and while the install is simple, not all of the upgrades from Vista -> Windows 7 went smooth. Because of all of the extra work the last thing I want to do is reinstall another machine, hence the desire to just swap some hardware and be done with it.
SUCCESS!!
Tonight I upgraded from an Nvidia Chipset Asus M3N72-D with Phenom x4 to AMD/ATI chipset MSI 790FX-GD70. It booted up directly into Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and detected all of the changed settings. At this point I selected to uninstall all Nvidia drivers but my video card drivers. After everything was done I rebooted and it's working like a champ.
I made sure my SATA port was the same for my HD on both mobo (boot drive in port 1). Could be superstitious, but it worked.
The only two things I can think of...
#1 - It's ok to go from Nvidia to AMD, but not the other way around?
#2 - Windows 7 Ultimate works better than Windows 7 Pro for this???
Good luck if you try. I'm 1 for 2 and couldn't be more pleased at the moment.
How about activation? Did you change key at Computer>Properties link to reinstall key so it doesn't flag activation on hardware change?
The other method is repair install to acclimate the new hardware and reset activation, since it always requires key being reapplied anyway. May require robo call to MS which "Deactivates" key on old hardware and activates new one.
I did not have to reactivate windows after swapping motherboards.
This is not entirely true, as I understand it.No, it will be the same thing. 3.X is going to be your limit. I have 2 X 2048 and that is just the way it is. When you go to 64-bit you can get more Ram, but the programs are limited in number for 64-bit at this time. It kind of defeats the purpose.
And I encourage anyone to do more in-depth (not forums, actual articles) research.
Yes, Windows will report only 3G of ram,,, but,, Windows (regardless of 32 or 64 bit),, should reserve the 1st Gig for certain things. Now, htat could be 100M or 900M. So, yes, while there may be a bit of "wasted" memory, not all of it is. It is not, just not used.
64Bit just handles it differently than 32bit
Last edited by Tepid; 17 Dec 2009 at 17:29.
If you really want to know why and how Windows 32-bit versions are limited to approx 3 GB ram, then read this article Geoff Chappell, Software Analyst - Viewer
It's brilliant work imo - long story short though, the limit is not an architectural one, but a covert licensing policy by MS, ostensibly to make you upgrade to 64-bit and leave some more of your cash in the MS vault.
I did not read all of that,,, but,, it pretty much doesn't make much since. If MS wanted to force more money out of people to purchase 64bit by limiting memory usage in 32bit..... Then why do they provide both 32bit and 64bit with every retail copy of windows? If you purchase OEM, and for whatever reason the above article is true,,,, then you should have purchased 64bit anyway, and if you wish to upgrade then you will need to do so. With that said,,,, Yes, I can see how this could be (if true) bad business practice, by not disclosing it as a license issue and had they just stated as such from the get go this wouldn't be an issue. But, I digress to my earlier statement of "you get both 32bit and 64bit with retail purchase". If you did not go that route and went with 32bit, that is your fault. Quite honestly, this should be moot as Vista/7 should have been 64bit only anyway.
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