So my MSI mpower z77 motherboard died 2 weeks ago. Last year I had cloned the drive from mechanical to ssd. This was also before i knew about sysprep methods. Didn't have much issues though with running windows 7. I'm not sure if I should use sysprep because I was very stupid when I first got windows 7. I enabled the administrator account and used that as my main login. I hated the UAV and please run as administrator warnings. I hope I am not paying for it now. The windows install is a oem serial key for windows 7 ultimate. I have methods getting around the serial key issue in 2021.
I do not want to do a fresh install. I have programs like Adobe suite, Maya and red giant software that I got either free or at major discounts when I was still in school. To get them now would cost thousands of dollars. I also have specific visual c++ runtime packages for game capability and emulators like psx2 and pspx that I can't get from the Microsoft site anymore. I also have a bunch of defunct software that still serve specific purposes even in 2021 but I can't activate via serial key because they need to connect to company server to activate. These companies are broke. One is copy filename, other is image duplicate plus. Image duplicate plus is a duplicate image finder that uses special algorithm that not only uses metadata but also a scan of the image's makeup by pixel arrangement to search for dups. It's very handy. I was planning to make an image back up right before the motherboard died.
Does anyone have any solutions? I am afraid to use sysprep and not sure if I even can. Also if I am going to try Heiden boot cd I need to know the best version that guarantees to work 100% of the time.
Also I don't want to destroy registry data for any games I have. Problems with registry changes for games can affect 3 things. The game's exe will no longer run asking to run install disk, or my save data and configure data no gets read.
So how screwed am I? I really need help.
