Nah - probably not - I just went from an ECS K7S5A w/SIS chipset to an
ASUS A8N-SLi with no real problems.
Pretty much the same experience here as Lon Leader's. Using the Repair
Windows XP option, I recently went from an Asus P4T533-C with an Intel
850E chipset to an Abit BH6 with an Intel 440 BX chipset with no
problems. (Because the Asus mobo died, I had to go back to an even
older Abit mobo I happen to own)
The tricky part in the Repair Windows XP procedure was, for me, that I
had to hit F6 in the beginning of the process and load drivers for my
Promise controller card from a floppy. (But that's no different than
what I'd do in a fresh install). After that, everything went pretty
smooth. I checked Device Manager and everything in there was OK; and
the only app that gave me a problem was Adobe Acrobat, which I
reinstalled.
I think it's more accurate (and less provocative) to say that a
reformat and fresh OS install is a good idea when you switch mobos, or
even that it's recommended. To say that one "MUST" reformat is too
strong a statement.
When I get a new motherboard in the near fuure, I plan on doing
another Repair Windows XP, unless I decide to purchase a new drive
too. Since a new drive is usually faster, that's generally when I
elect to do a fresh install of Windows XP (onto the new drive). I seem
to be getting a new drive every couple years, so it's not as though I
never do a fresh OS install. But in this case I'm formatting an empty
drive, not reformatting a drive full of data, prior to installing
WinXP.
Philly