Replacing most hardware; have question about procedure with Windows 10

[Spaumi10]

I have the following current hardware:

AMD FX-6300
Asus M5A99X Evo 2.0
Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB DDR3
Samsung 840 Evo 250GB SSD and WD Caviar Blue 1TB HDD
EVGA GTX 1060
Windows 10 on SSD

I am wanting to upgrade to the following:
Intel i5-6600
Gigabyte GA-H170 (or other H170 mobo)
Some new ddr4 ram
All the rest the same

My question is about the procedure for upgrading and reactivating Windows 10. I see most people suggest do a clean install of Windows 10 and formatting the SSD and HDD.

What order do I do things in? When do I format the drives? Before installing new hardware or after? Will I run into issues with the below process or is there a better way to do this?

(1) install new hardware; then
(2) do a clean install of Windows 10 with ISO image (as it appears they don't use media creation tool) from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO;
(3) use activation troubleshooter (which I already have linked account) as in http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3164428/windows-build-1607-activation.html;
(4) format HDD;
(5) move all backed up files onto SSD and HDD?

Thanks for any help. I have look over the forums and found lots of similar questions but with slight difference. Just don't want to start into this and find out I did something wrong and can't get Windows 10 reactivated. If it helps, I don't have another Windows PC to use.

 

[USAFRet]

0) With the Media Creation tool, create a DVD or USB install media.
1) Yes
2) Install with what you made in step 0
3) Yes
3a) Drivers, and then any applications you want installed on the SSD
4) Yes
5) Yes

 

[Spaumi10]

Thanks for the answer. One small other question. I have seen some conflicting information on what storage drives need to be cleared after significant hardware changes.

I have my OS on the SSD. I have games, applications (LibreOffice, 7Zip, etc.) on the HDD. Is there a reason why I would need to clear the HDD? I want the best solution but also the amount of time it will take to download/reinstall everything is a lot. I realize I could back-up most of it but it seems like that defeats the purpose if I am just going to move everything to another drive and back again.

Thanks for help.

 

[Colif]

if games are in steam or origin libraries, they can be reused. If you have wow on hdd, it can be reused as well.

Any applications previously installed on hdd will need to be done again as new install won't have the necessary registry entries so Win 10 won't know they are there

So just delete installed applications. NO need to clear hdd if its never had windows on it.

I would have moved my library folders to hdd before moving so they are all there waiting when you reinstall on ssd

 

[Spaumi10]

Another question. How and when is the best way to go about uninstalling drivers for mobo/cpu?

I assume uninstalling before installing the new hardware, but what is best way? Just going through device manager and finding right drivers? Anything better?

Or would it be better to not uninstall drivers and just boot from USB media for Windows 10 install after hardware swap and that would wipe all drivers in process of install? Or just do clean install before swap?

Thanks again

 

[Colif]

You don't need to wipe drivers IF you are going to do a clean install as its extra redundant work, the clean install will wipe entire drive anyway.

If you doing a clean install, do it after you put drive into new PC.

 

[Spaumi10]

If you doing a clean install, do it after you put drive into new PC.

Thanks for the answer.

Would that cause issues with current drivers on boot? Or would I just boot, for first boot with new hardware, directly to USB and clean install from there?

 

[Colif]

Win 10 pretty good, you could try to boot win 10 without swapping the drivers but it may not get anywhere. I had assumed you would boot from USB on first boot and fresh install from there. I haven't built a PC in a long time and they all had blank drives at start.