Windows 8.1 installation on new motherboard

I know there will be dissenters on this issue, there always is, but to MY experience, on many motherboard swaps NOT involving an identical board, the system will require you to reactivate. It's pretty much painless and just requires a phone call to MS. If you go into the System section of control panel after the swap there will be a link on the right hand side that will guide you through the process.

2 concepts:
Reinstall, and reactivate.

You will probably need to reinstall.
If so, you will need to reactivate.

If you don't need to reinstall, you will probably need to reactivate.

New hardware, reinstall is recommended if not required.
Activation is either totally painless (online), or mostly painless (phone robot).

It's much better to start fresh anytime you make a major hardware change like that.

Click to expand...

Precisely.
So many here want to not do that, and have it automagically be the same as it used to be. Forgetting that they are also bringing along all the old cruft that has been building up over the last year of that install.

 Step 1: Place your windows 8.1 DVD in the DVD ROM or plug in your Windows 8.1 bootable USB flash drive and restart your PC . We have used a bootable USB flash drive to install windows 8.1 in this guide .
 Step 2: When your PC reboots , Enter your PC’s Bios settings and set your installation media as the first boot priority . Now save your bios settings and restart your PC . Alternatively press F11 to bring up the boot media selector and select the bootable USB flash drive .
 Step 3: When your PC restarts you will be prompted to press any key to boot from your installation media . Press any key to continue .
 Step 4: You will see the following loading screen with a rotating progress bar . Wait for a few seconds till the necessary files are loaded .
 Step 5: Next you will see the following screen , where you will have to select the language , time and currency format and keyboard layout . choose your required settings and click on next .
 Step 6: On the next screen click on install now , after which you need to wait for a few minutes for the setup process to start .
 Step 7: Now you will be prompted to enter your Windows 8.1 product key , you can either use your windows 8 activation key or the product key that came with windows 8.1 . Enter your product key correctly and click on next .
 Step 8: Read the license terms thoroughly before you continue to install windows 8.1 on your PC . When its done click on next to proceed with the windows 8.1 installation .
 Step 9: On the next screen choose the type of your installation , since we are doing a clean install select the second option , which is custom : install windows only ( Advanced ) .
 Step 10: Next you will be required to select a drive to install windows 8.1 , you can either format a drive and install windows 8.1 on it , or directly install windows 8.1 within the existing space in a drive . If you are going to use windows 8.1 as your primary OS then format your existing windows 7 drive , select it and click next to start installing windows 8.1 on it .
 Step 11: Now wait for the installation process to complete , this might take more than 10 minutes in most cases . in case you are using a SSD this process will be much faster .
 Step 12: When the installation process complete , your PC will be reboot automatically and boot into windows 8.1 and you will see various progress bars . after a few minutes your PC will reboot again .
 Step 13: Now windows 8.1 is almost installed on your PC , the last thing you need to do is personalize a few settings and you will be able to use windows 8.1 . Also you need to sign in into your Microsoft account to be able to take advantage of the windows app store .
 Step 14: After you are done with all the settings , you will see the ” getting ready screen ” . just a few minutes more and you will see the familiar windows 8.1 start screen and your PC is all ready for the windows 8.1 experience .