No, not at all !

Personally I have moved Windows 98 SE installation from P4 Prescott on i865PE to AMD Barton on KT133A.
All devices were rediscovered, drivers installed and system is working.

I suppose ME isn't so different.

BTW: Windows XP is more fussy in this topic, but after just 'R'epair from installation disk, everything is up and running with no need for reinstallation. I did it a lot between totally different hardware.

You can increase your chances by uninstalling all non-native drivers before the swap.

The problem after a successful OS transplant is that whatever you're troubleshooting in the future, you can't know what's caused by the lack of a clean install and what's something else.

Is re installing windows such a hardship ?

My wife insisted I migrate her win98 install every upgrade from 98ish to mid 2000s, 5 times I think it was, last running on a Tbred A/K7S5A, started on a Cyrix 6x86 PR166. .... then as a last ditch effort to keep it running, I tried one of those user created service packs off a windows forum an "sp3" after MS was done with 98, and it got mangled then. I think it was an attempt to support 16:9 resolutions when LCDs got down to $99 on sale, so that tells you how late in the day it was for 98.

However, I don't know that the SP mangled it, it could have had terminal bit rot already, though I maintained it well and kept it cleaned up. Kept meaning to try it on a fresh 98 install sometime.

Well anyway, point was yah, you can move 98 across architectures pretty easy, it's less messy to delete drivers first, otherwise it might barf and restart in safe mode and you'll have to do it then.

Edit: By architectures I just mean varying x86 CPUs and chipsets, not x86 to ARM or MIPs of course..... someone gonna nitpick that 😁

Davros wrote:

Is re installing windows such a hardship ?

This.

For me the thing that cause's the problems is the hard drive controller and chipset drivers.

Davros wrote:

Is re installing windows such a hardship ?

No but reinstalling and configuring video settings for three dozen games is.

WinME apparently needs a startup recovery disk to "repair" the registry so it won't mysteriously shut down on boot when it comes to moving ME installs around.

I've had easy success moving Win98 installs around but never Me.

"No but reinstalling and configuring video settings for three dozen games is."

shouldnt be. In win96 most games save settings in a file not the registry and your registry shoould be intact
I went from xp to win 7 with over 500 games installed and it wasnt that bad
https://www.regfiles.net
Helped a lot

Backup, Backup, Backup. Clean install all the way. Migrating was created to screw with you and your files. Any DOS game files will be iffy after a swap from 98 to Me. I vote to wipe drive then install.

What Davros said.
Its good idea to install games on another drive or partition. about 90% will retain all their settings, you just need to double click the exe.
I even do this across different PC's to save time installing, patching, configuring.

As the saying goes, your only as stable as your foundation. Win9x isn't the most stable to start with so would rest easier knowing it was a fresh install.