PC seems to "forget everything" after installation of new motherboard, CPU, PSU

I have some scripts parked in the Startup folder. Despite re-installing the programs and parking them in Startup Folder PLUS doing a Task scheduler, they refuse to auto-start. Is there any other way to force them to launch on startup?

Separately my Chrome behaves the same way. Seems to have forgotten all logins though that's a minor thing.

Are you logged into Chrome? I've never heard of It not letting tasks in task scheduler not work but did you verify that windows is still activated after all the hardware changed? Usually a new motherboard triggers re-activation unless it's the exact same model motherboard as you removed and sometimes even then. Make sure all your chipset drivers are installed for new hardware before activation. Plus you will need to verify your Microsoft account.

yes I have re-activated and signed/verified into Windows + updated all drivers. Also logged into Chrome. After all these, my task scheduler still doesn't seem to work properly.

I would run sfc /scannow from administrative command. If that doesn't come up with something, about all you can do is follow up with a repair install. Hopefully that will do the trick and avoid the need for a clean install.

I know it is quite common for people who do drastic hardware changes to use their old windows installation and usually are successful. But my way of thinking has always been that despite windows now installing most necessary drivers for the new hardware, all of the old drivers, associated apps and registry entries are still on the drive. Most everyone here disagrees with me on this, but IMO it's an unhealthy thing for a good, clean installation environment and who knows what issues it can cause. But I expect others to call me out on my stance on this. They always do. I'm just a stickler when it comes to unnecessary junk because Lord knows it's a balancing act when one deals with Windows. Like I said. That's just me.

what are the steps for a repair install while still retaining all my individual app settings as well as windows settings? Do I have to boot from my win11 image drive?

One thing that can cause issues with a reinstall after a motherboard replacement is that if you do not use a microsoft ID (email address), but instead reuse an old local user name is that windows sees the old and new local addresses as different even if the name we see are identical, [this is due to the system using a unique System ID, or SID and not the name we see]

If you use a Microsoft account the SID will remain the same when re-used

although the new local user, as an administrator, will be able to access most of the existing files using their new administrator access rights, this does not always apply with things at a deeper level especially items that have been restored from backups that were created under the old SID

To use these options you often need to rebuild the Task scheduler tasks or at least take ownership of the files involved or manually add rights gfor the "New" User account

Variations on these issues were one of the reasons that the Microsoft ID was developed - My standard way of working today is the always setup the system using a microsoft ID and then if preferred creating administrators locally to meet your needs

Even on my own system where I run under a microsoft account I always create an additional administrator locally as an "emergency back door"

you're right! my previous setup was as a local admin. Now I'm signed in to a MS ID but there's still a lot of "broken stuff".

To use these options you often need to rebuild the Task scheduler tasks or at least take ownership of the files involved or manually add rights gfor the "New" User account

Click to expand...

How exactly do I do this?

Probably the easiest is copy the existing rules one at a time, and when you paste back into the lists they should have the "authority" of the new Administrator, and you can then delete the old one - If this method still works with W11.

First thing to do is the copy the content of the Tasks into a notepad file, this way if the task has to be added from scratch you have a lot of the work done

barman58 said:

Probably the easiest is copy the existing rules one at a time, and when you paste back into the lists they should have the "authority" of the new Administrator, and you can then delete the old one - If this method still works with W11.

First thing to do is the copy the content of the Tasks into a notepad file, this way if the task has to be added from scratch you have a lot of the work done

Click to expand...

thing is I didn't have any saved tasks before. I added a new task AFTER my hardware changes, but it didn't run.

Do the tasks that you are creating since the reinstall have to access or manipulate files that existed under the old local admin account that were specifically Owned by the old local admin?

If so you may need to take ownership of these files with the current admin or manually alter the properties of these files to remove the old admin and add the new one - the take control option is the probably simplest way to proceed in this case as you have no use for the old admin

it is a python script which I created myself. Have tried taking ownership & rebooted, still doesn't auto-start by itself..

First to admit that python is not something I have any real knowledge in, but a quick search around suggests that there have been a few issues with the Python location not updating the environment variables correctly automatically.

This is a full method to update the variables correctly


[the accent is not a help but all the information is there I believe to check and/or change the settings as you may need to