Where to find .oem, .sys, and/or .inf for the chipset driver and the HD controller driver for universal restore???

AS close in model as these 2 boards I would think that you could get the machine to boot after from the existing install and then just update the drivers from the installation CD.  You would probably find even more up to date drivers on the MSI support ste for your maodel board.

If you find that your machine will not boot you can then run the Universal Restore tool to supply the drivers to the installation.

I agree with Enchantech. Universal Restore is only used to get the new computer to boot into the restored Windows. After you boot into Windows, you simply update all the drivers just as you would after a clean install of Windows. Just set the bios of the new machine as close to the bios settings of the old machine as possible and do a full disk restore. Windows 10 should be able to handle it without using Universal Restore. I have replace a few motherboards on Windows 10 systems and have never had to use Universal Restore.

Ditto here.  I just upgraded from a Gigabyte z77x-ud3h (3 gen intel) to a z170x-gaming3 (6th gen intel) and no univesal restore needed.  Just download the latest manufacturer drivers from your vendor and have those ready ahead of time and once Windows boots up, you should be good to go.  Otherwise, Windows 10 will use Generic Microsofot drivers and should find most things on its own (NIC is the most important to have on hand so you can connect to the Internet if you don't download things in advance - at least have that one ready). 

FYI on licensing.  Once restored to a new mobo, Windows 10 was not licensed.  I had to go through the hoops of installing my old Win 7 Ultimate license, run Windows 10 upgrade and verify the license was active.  After that, when I restored my image again, then it was licensed with the new hardware as well.  If using Windows 7 or 8, you'll probably have to call Microsoft to re-activate the key on teh new board - not always, but usually.

Bobbo,

When you have time, enlighten us a bit more concerning your efforts restoring Win10 to a new MB.

We will all have to do this sooner or later.  Did you actually have to Re-Install your Old Windows 7 ( overwriting your win 10 ) and then do the upgrade to 10 ?

If yes, then the reason for that is the license problem ?  After this summer the "Free" upgrade to win 10 will be over.

What happens then... if we have to reinstall our current Win 10 onto a NEW MB  (which was a legal non-oem upgrade from Win7 or 8).

We all probably have or will make the re-install discs from MS but we all need to know how to deal with this re-licensing issue when the disaster happens...  and we know it will...

I am just concerned about re-installing to a new MB and getting it activated without too may jumps and hoops.

Steve 

So, as usual, I made a full disk image of my original SSD (Samsung EVO 850) and saved it to another disk.

On my new system, I now have a Samsung 950 Pro PCIE NVME.  I pushed the image selecting everything but MBR disk 0 partition (I could have kept it though, I'm sure).  

Before powering up, I removed the old drive to prevent a hardware ID conflict (just in case).  Originally I could not boot, but this was an issue on my end with the new BIOS which, for some reason, I must use the "Windows boot manager" entry as my first choice with this manufacturer or it simply would not boot - this was my biggest learning curve and took me hours to figure out.  

As far as Acronis imaging and restore went though, it was just fine.

Upon booting, the first thing I always check is if Office 2016 remained licensed (it did not) and the OS (it was also not activated).  I could activate Office with my key, but the OS would not license at all.  

Since the Win 10 upgrades are "tied" to the old hardware, I figured this would be the case.  

However, I have a box copy of Win 7 Ultimate and plenty of spare drives, I disabled the new drive and put in a blank SSD (to preserve the image restore I just did).  I then installed Win 7 to the drive, instaled just the network driver, quickly checked to make sure it licensed (which it did) and then immediately plugged in my Win 10 USB installer and let it upgrade the system.  Since this was a fresh/bare Win 7 install and new hardware with a fast drive and a local USB installer the upgrade only took like 10 minutes in this case.  After the upgrade, I installed the NIC driver again (it's one of those killer NIC's so Windows couldn't find it on it's own for some reason).  A soon as I had networking, I checked the license activation and it was good to go.

I then remvoed that drive, put in the drive with my newly pushed image and when I checked the activation, it was now good to go.

This is a royal pain, but I've called Microsoft before in similar instances and they were no help giving me new activation keys like they used to because it's hardware based - even though I can give them proof of my boxed license keys and purchase orders of Win 7 Ult and Win 8.1 pro.

I do see this as a problem for older Win 7/8.1 boxed licenses when the "free" upgrades go away (if they really do) - you can probably forget about OEM licenses in these types of situations as well.  I have 3 home systems and have actually installed my Win 7 Ultimate and Win 8.1 boxed keys on every single one and upgraded to Win 10 so that I can use any of my "free" windows 10 upgrades on any of them down the road if needed.  Hopefully, Microsfot keeps these upgrades as "free" in the future, but I'm not banking on it.

McKay, seems like the consensus is just boot normally with my old system. Will it boot normally? Startup repair not necessary? Then just install the drivers from the new mobo disc? Will Windows know which ones to replace?

@Mustang - which bios settings you talking about?

Thanks for the replies people! It's comforting to know that there are nerds out there more nerdier than I am!

Most likely, but depends on how similar your motherboard actually is.  Only way to find out is to try.  If it does start, yes, just update drivers as necessary.  If it does not start, you'll probably get a BSOD because of bad/wrong drivers.  If that happens, you would need to run Universal Restore to generalize the drivers and then it should boot, and proceed to install drivers after that.

As for BIOS settings - make sure that the old system SATA mode is the same on the new one (RAID, AHCI or SATA are normally the choices).  If the old system was booting in Legacy/CSM/BIOS mode, the new one will need to be configured to do the same.  Likewise if the old was UEFI then the new one needs to be set to UEFI.  Many bios will all for both modes, but not all, and even those that do, still often have to specfically enable CSM/legacy/bios mode and/or turn off secure boot as part of that process.  

Bobbo,

Thank you for taking the time to list the detailed new mobo update process !

My thinking below is based on a Win 10 upgrade that was NOT derived from an OEM OS but that came from a purchased Win7 or 8 Disc with key (like you have).

So, as I see it, we do not have any real trouble "right now", however, if the "Free" Win 10 update from Win7/8 officially ends, and we have a mobo crash and attempt to reinstall Win10 to a new mobo (after the free upgrade time expires) then we might just have an OS that will not activate because the upgrade was "tied" to the original update motherboard and the "free" update offer has now expired.  hummmm...  If that turns out to be the case, our alternative would be to "buy" a Win 10 license or re-install Win7 or 8... from our Non-OEM OS disc....Smile.   Maybe MS should just re-activate as long as the OS used to obtain the upgrade was not OEM based.

It will be interesting to see how all this is handled after the "Free" upgrade time expires.

Steve

That takes me back to my original question - universal remote wants the chipset and hd controller driver .sys, .inf and/or .oem files.where do I find them? I searched through the disk and found a bunch. I'm assuming that the previous board was ahci, not sure though, how can I find out? I don't think my old board was UEFI. In fact, I'll show my n00bness. What is UEFI?

JERT I won't go into depth about the differences between UEFI and MBR, but in a nushell, UEFI is a newer boot method that brings security features and the ability to boot with GPT disks and disks larger than 2TB.  Some will say it's faster too, but not in realworld use.  If you really want to learn about the differences, check out this article:

http://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mb…

So, did you try to boot your system in the new build and it BSOD on you?  If you haven't even tried to boot yet, just give it a shot - you might be suprised that it boots to Windows.

If not, and you get a BSOD, then you need to run UR; howeever, you do not not need to supply any drivers to use Universal Restore initially.  Just run universal restore, if it sees your OS, then just apply it and reboot and hopefully all goes well after that.  If you still do get a BSOD, note which item caused it and then you will need to find those drivers and slip them in with UR, but try generalizing first and see how it goes before worrying about that. 

If you do end up needing the drivers, you want to get them from your mobo manufactuer website.  Often times, they will be downloaded as a .zip file or .exe.  You can usually use something like 7zip (free) or winzip to extract the contents out of them and then you would point UR to those locations and it will do the driver injection after that.  Again though, don't worry about this until you've already run UR to simply generalize the system.

Well, it booted. Got lucky i think. It booted up the first time I tried - then I decided to go eat, so I shut it down without updating the drivers. I filed my belly with pizza, came back and turned it on, but it just got hung up on the mobo splash screen. Reset, then i got nothing. I thought maybe my video card connection was loose, fixed that - still nada. Then i started thinking i confused the chipset, so I pulled the CMOS battery for a few seconds, and it fits rift up after that 

  But i can't get on the Web - i installed all the drivers, but still no joy. I used the drivers from the CD and the website.

What is the NIC on the new board?  Intel, Realtec, etc. 

Did you use Device Manager to update the driver for the NIC?

Does the NIC even show in Device Manager?

If the NIC is there in computer management with no errors (that is the first thing to lok for), run an "ipconfig /all" from command prompt and make sure you're getting a valid IP address from your router (not an 169.x.x.x loopback address).  If you are getting a good IP address, then try to ping a site like "www.google.com" which should send a reply response.  Are you getting any replies?  If you aren't, may have a bad NIC, or need to look into removing the device from computer management and readding it with the vendor drivers again and see if that helps.  If you are getting replies from within command prompt, but can't surf the web, you have other issues with the machine (possibly antivirus blocking traffic, a bad "proxy" configuration in Internet Explorer, try a different browser (if you can), reseat your netework cable, etc.) 

Bobbo,

In your issue with Windows and MS Office not being activated do you think if you had the Product Keys and input those keys into the Actvation routines in each respective app/program that they would have passed activation or enabled you to activate by contact to MS?

For Office yes - and that did work by supplying the key in the application.  

For Windows - no.  I have the original keys for Win 7 Ultimate and Win 8.1 Pro and tried them on their respective image restore to the new hardware, but it says they are not valid.  

I called Microsoft in hopes that if I provided the keys with proof of purchase, they would give me a Windows 10 code to use instead, but no dice.  They bascially told me I'd have to install the old one first and then upgrade it, which is what I restorted to.  Once it was active again, I could then push my image back and it remained active. 

Have you thought about extracting the Windows Product Key currently in use and comparing that with your old keys for Win 7 and Win 8.1?  I am a bit curious if the validated copy you now have has a new key.

I've used tools like Jellybean keyfinder to extract the Win 10 keys in the past, but they are generic and I found them to all be the same for each version of Windows 10 (one for home, one for pro, one for education, etc) if they were upgrades.

A buddy of mine told me to check out this WMIC commands so I'll compare them to Jellybean and see if they are the same or different.  If this fairs better, it may prevent others from having to go through the rebuild hurdles.  I'll have to test it out later tonight though. 

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/find-windows-product-key

Try this out as well and let me know your results please:

The WMIC commands from elevated command prompt and/or powershell don't work on my 3 systems - they return nothing.

The VBS script you provided and and MagicJellyBean Key Finder return the same license information as each other Unfortunately, as I had encountered before, the keys are exactly the same on my Win10x64 Pro system that was upgraded from Win 7 Ultimate and my other Win10x64 Pro system that was upgraded from Windows 8.1 Pro.  I also have 2 systems that previously had Windows 8.1 home premium and they both ended up with the same generic key as each other (but different than the Pro ones). The keys listed are the same generic ones found at:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3f1r4y/psa_to_find_your_win…

******EDIT**********

I wanted to note that these are not actual license keys - they will not license or register Windows on their own - jus want to be clear as I'm sure someone will comment for posting keys in the forum.  Also, the note from reddit says you just need to contact Microsoft if you change hardware, but that was not the case I found after trying 2 different times.  I was told that the free upgrades must be upgraded from the originally installed software first - which is what I did, and it works, but it is a major PITA.  The only time saver was the abiltiy to install my old license with offline Windows media fairly quickly, upgrade it to Win10 with offline media without having to install updates or anyting, and get it licensed, then go back to my Win 10 image from Acronis and it was licensed after that.

******EDIT**********

It is tied to the hardware not the key however say you upgrade a motherboard or something along those lines then all you will need to do i contact Microsoft support.

EDIT It is a generic key that is being gave out Here are all generic keys:

Windows 10 Home - YTMG3-N6DKC-DKB77-7M9GH-8HVX7

Windows 10 Home SL- BT79Q-G7N6G-PGBYW-4YWX6-6F4BT

Windows 10 Pro - VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

Windows 10 Pro VL-MAK - QJNXR-7D97Q-K7WH4-RYWQ8-6MT6Y

Thank you Bobbo.  That confirms what I understand to be the new EULA for Microsoft Windows 10.  Any upgrade from a previous Windows version is as you say tied to the hardware and the key finders will simple produce the generic keys. 

I too found the WMIC commands to be non functional on my machines. 

On the upside however is on the Retail license side, I have 1 machine with a purchased retail installed copy.  The Key finder script is capable of producing the actual Prodcut Key for that install.  So for those whom have a retail version and have lost or misplaced their key the tool can be used to retrieve it.

Thanks for your time with this sir!

Ugh, still nada. I've a usb WiFi adapter, the drivers for it are still installed, but it don't show up on the adapter options of the network and sharing center. I've installed the drivers from the disc and the website. I know the NIC works -I loaded Windows on a superstore hard drive, thinking universal restore had to have an OS to restore to. Could I just do a standard restore to that? And I went ahead and tried universal restore - it not does not ask for a restore file, what I am doing wrong?

Loaded Windows from a *separate hard drive

jERT - have you checked computer managment >>> device manager to see if your USB wireless device shows up there?  If so, does it show a yellow warning triangle or any unknown devices?  Not all of the USB wifi drives are plug-n-play and will need to have the manufacturer software and/or drivers installed separately (if we are talking about it not being found in full Windows).

If we're talking about it not being recognized in WinPE - that is a WinPE limitation as wireless is not supported.  You might have luck adding or using a portable version of WinPENetwork to see if that detects your wireless drive, but customizing your WinPE to use it is more detailed than just Acronis support so you'd want to research it more in depth yourself. 

The adapter shows up in the device manager with the yellow sign. The drivers for the adapter were installed on this OS

My restore ideas won't work? 

Bobbo,

It may not have been necessary to install Windows 7 first.  Windows 10 version 1511 accepts Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 keys.  Did you try going to Settings, Activation, Change product key, and entering your retail Windows 7 or 8 key?  It sounds like that may have worked at least during the free upgrade period.

Activating Windows 10 (Version 1511 or higher) using a Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 product key

During the free upgrade, you can use a valid Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 product key to activate Windows 10 (Version 1511 or higher). The following types of product keys are supported:

Product keys included in the packaging or the Certificate of Authenticity (COA) attached to your PC that came installed with Windows.

Product keys included in the confirmation email you received after buying Windows from an online retailer.

Product keys included in the box the Windows DVD came in.

Product keys you bought using Windows Anytime Upgrade or Get Genuine Windows.

If you bought a Windows 8.1 Pro Pack product key, you can use it to activate Windows 10 Pro.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/activation-in-windows-10

Joey,

I did not - should have remembered to try.  Unfortunateley, I don't have a way to go back and test now as the hardware is registered alreday.  I suppose I could try swapping my Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows 7 Ulimate keys, but still woldn't be an accurate test since Windwos 10 is registered to all of my device again now.

jERT wrote:

The adapter shows up in the device manager with the yellow sign. The drivers for the adapter were installed on this OS

My restore ideas won't work? 

The yellow sign can mean the drivers are not installed or the device failed to start.  If you click on it, there will be more information.  I would "uninstall" the device in device manager and select to uninstall the driver too (if the option is available).  Using your working ethernet adapater, go to your wireless adapter manufactuer website and get the latest driver for the correct OS.  Your device probably came out before Windows 10 and may not have the correct drivers on it.  Best to get the most current directly from the source and try again after that. Sometimes these wireless adapters come with their own wireless software that needs to be installed with the driver to be fully functional.