Moving a retail copy of windows from one pc to another

[jak731]

I've bought W7 pro and it's the first retail version of windows I have owned. If I upgrade my computer (ie new motherboard etc) is their any special process I need to go through when reinstalling it besides just formatting? How will the validation servers know I haven't just left it installed on the old machine and waited for them to validate the new install?

 

[Brian Stuart]

You just do a clean install on the new motherboard. You can only have it installed on one PC at a time so if you change the complete system you should format the drive it was previously installed on.