How De-Activate W7? Is It Needed For Clean Install On Same Machine?

Its been a few years since I did a clean install and one is now needed. My machine still runs fast and mostly stable but it is has become perceptibly sluggish to me and I am seeing the beginnings of inappropriate behavior with some of my software. I am now using W7 Professional and was originally intending to wait for W10 and combine the clean install with the "upgrade"(?) to W10. However, I have such a strong aversion to W8 I will not make the leap to W10 until I absolutely have to regardless of how good W10 is supposed to be. So, I made the decision to upgrade my 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD to a 512 GB Samsung 850 Pro SSD (already delivered), leave all other hardware unchanged, and simply reinstall the exact same W7 and Product Key that is already on this machine. To avoid a hassle with MS, due I need to deactivate the existing installation before I replace the SSD and reinstall W7 using the same Product Key?

It's not needed to deactivate.

RhoXS said:

I have such a strong aversion to W8 I will not make the leap to W10 until I absolutely have to regardless of how good W10 is supposed to be.

Click to expand...

If you are in the 1% then very well. But 99% of people who post this, do so because they've never installed Classic Shell which makes the Windows 8 user interface identical to Windows 7.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/752525-How-do-you-install-classic-shell-in-Win-8-1

I have a MS Surface Pro 3 that I am using to type this. I did indeed install Classic Shell and it certainly does make this otherwise excellent machine usable. I still detest W8 and want nothing to do with it or any variation of it.

If it's been a few years since you installed your copy of Win7, it'll probably activate just fine.