Complete overhaul, can I use my current Windows 7 licence on new hardware

My computer is reaching its end and I'm looking into buying pretty much everything new

i5 cpu

motherboard

ram

case

gpu and

psu

Since I already have an OS and hard drives do I just throw them in with the new hardware and go from there or format everything and re install from scratch without having to buy a new licence for windows.

Also I originally have a Vista cd and did an upgrade to windows 7 via download so how am I supposed to do that.

I did a similar thing, recently with Vista - Windows should reauthenticate with no problems.

Just be careful if you have something like MS Office installed - My hardware upgrades tipped me over the edge of the licenses I had for the Home & Student version (It thought it had been installed on another computer!), which meant a lengthy phone call to Microsoft.

So do I just hook up my hard drive and re install windows and re download the Windows 7 upgrade...or do I have to deactivate it somehow so that Im able to use it with new hardware

So do I just hook up my hard drive and re install windows and re download the Windows 7 upgrade...or do I have to deactivate it somehow so that Im able to use it with new hardware

insidious13

You shouldn't have to reinstall anything. From my experience, Windows will just re-authenticate itself. It's application software that is more likely to be a problem.

If you want to be ultra safe you could wipe your HDDs clean, but I don't think you need to. A phone call to MS is the worst case scenario - so not that likely. And even then, they would be able to sort you out as long as you have the relevant product keys.