What is the most efficient way to clean up the OS after modifying hardware?

[Macro Device]

Long story short, I'm gonna swap almost an entirety of my PC (see in specs) because my bro is in a desperate need of an upgrade (so he gets what I have now) and I'm also in fact not gonna mind upgrading.

The most impactful changes:
• New motherboard. Same socket, might be same chipset, yet not a given. I'm anticipating a different sound chip so it might mess up the registry and whatnot.
• New GPU. Not AMD, hell no, they're dead to me. This is likely to be an RTX 3080 Ti, 3090, 5070, or 4070 Ti GPU. Still not decided if I will cry without +12 GB or +million percent power efficiency. + Intel's iGPU, I'm not buying an F CPU.
Less impactful ones:
• New CPU. 13th gen instead of 12th.
• Additional SSDs for games and work projects.

The problem is I will hate to reinstall Windows from scratch. I can do that but it'll be a very huge pain to reinstall and reconfigure everything I got. A disaster and a half. So I need to clean everything up as efficiently as possible within a several hour window.

Not really in the mood for paid software so let's only consider freeware.

I already know of DDU so it's unnecessary to mention it.

Also don't throw "don't buy Intel, they burn and suck" mantras. I know the risks and they're totally worth it. No way I can get as much MT performance for the same cost going for AMD. Mini-ITX AM5 motherboards are also prohibitively expensive where I live so not an option.

 

[Onasi]

While this is, on the whole, EXTREMELY inadvisable, the OS will more than likely work just fine as is. Remove the old chipset drivers and GPU ones via DDU, see what the UEFI settings were and replicate them and you PROBABLY will be fine. Windows might need to be reactivated since new HWID. Since the change in terms of platform isn’t significant I don’t foresee any real issues. Again, I would go for a reinstall, not even necessarily a clean one, “Start Fresh” from Windows sittings or WinSec might be enough, but it’s your call.

 

[ty_ger]

Most efficient? Reinstall, in my opinion.

 

[mechtech]

My buddy flipped out a motherboard and booted and ram without doing anything lol. Had to get a new windows key. Mobo was same chipset so that may have helped. Sound chip is was different so he had to reinstall driver.

if doing a major upgrade I would get ms windows iso and Rufus it to usb update all the firmwares and secure erase the ssds and fresh install and call it a day.
Good luck!

 

[Macro Device]

Windows might need to be reactivated since new HWID

Not a problem, I got these keys for life.

Reinstall, in my opinion.

fresh install

This will take me forever to redownload, reinstall and reconfigure everything. Maybe a whole day, maybe even two. I don't know. Too much software. So I'm asking for the best amongst other solutions.

 

[Klemc]

Make an USB Win 10-11 bootdisk (from ISO), then upgrade from explorer (setup.exe) so it will ask to keep files and apps and reinstall Windows too. Must be same lang...

If Windows's already uptodate idk if upgrade works, you can anyway slipstream last KB in ISO before building USB drive.

Settings a few only are reset, like i install unattended it also follows appx installed or not !!

 

[Onasi]

Make an USB Win 10-11 bootdisk (from ISO), then upgrade from explorer (setup.exe) so it will ask to keep files and apps and reinstall Windows too. Must be same lang...

This is what “Start Fresh” option does already without even needing a boot disk. It’s either way the same outcome, it’s dealers choice.

This will take me forever to redownload, reinstall and reconfigure everything. Maybe a whole day, maybe even two. I don't know. Too much software. So I'm asking for the best amongst other solutions.

There isn’t really a “solution” other than just booting into your old drive on the new platform. Probably will work fine. If it doesn’t, you’ll be looking at a reinstall anyway.

 

[Steevo]

Ghostbuster and CCleaner at the very least.

I have done this so I didn't have to reinstall software that the key was missing for or attempting to install it again on a new OS didn't work. But I spent a LOT of time in Safe Mode with the registry editor to clean out the last traces of old hardware.

 

[Assimilator]

I first installed Windows 10 half a decade ago when I emigrated to the UK. That same install has gone from a 3600X + X370 + 2060, to a 5800X + X470 + 2070, to 5900X + X570S + 2080 Ti, to my current hardware setup - with zero issues. Seriously, none. It was literally power down old PC, swap boot drive into new one, boot new one, install missing drivers, reboot, done. Oh, and this also includes a couple of clones of that same OS from SSD => NVMe => larger NVMe.

And no, I have not had extra latency or malfunctioning devices or blue screens or dropped frames or any of that; it literally just works. People really need to get with the times and understand how mature and robust Windows is as an OS, in terms of its hardware model and driver stack. It's been helped by hardware becoming better at conforming to specs, but at the end of the day MS has done an incredible job, which they're rarely given enough credit for, of building an operating system that very much has no concern about what it's running on.

In short, you don't need to worry or waste your time. Put the old drive in the new system and you should be golden. Life's too short to obsess about cleaning uninstalled devices out of Device Manager.

 

[Onasi]

Ghostbuster and CCleaner at the very least.

I have done this so I didn't have to reinstall software that the key was missing for or attempting to install it again on a new OS didn't work. But I spent a LOT of time in Safe Mode with the registry editor to clean out the last traces of old hardware.

This is unnecessary faffing. I don’t know why people think that the Windows registry benefits in any way, shape or form from “cleaning” in the year 2025. It doesn’t matter. It won’t improve anything. Just leave it as is.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Just hot swap the gear. W11 just doesn't give a F, it'll work fine.

 

[Konomi]

Generally, you'll be fine if not switching between brands or going from such ancient hardware to something more modern. What you could start doing however, is work on seeing if you can use portable versions of software you may be running, as that would reduce the amount of setup time you may encounter in future. Also when it comes to reinstalling the OS, you could look into creating your own custom images with tools such as NTLite.

 

[evernessince]

Typically, it's recommended to uninstall old drivers before upgrading.

Post upgrade you can also go into device manager "view > show hidden devices" to see and delete old unused drivers.

Driver store explorer is also great for cleaning out old drivers that the above steps don't catch.

 

[Macro Device]

Thanks everyone. Now I'm back to work. This PC won't earn money for itself.