Let K be a field of characteristic 0 and \(k \ge 2\) be an integer. We prove that every K-linear bijection \(f : K[X] \rightarrow K[X]\) strongly preserving the set of k-free polynomials (or the set of polynomials with a k-fold root in K) is a constant multiple of a K-algebra automorphism of K[X], i.e., there are elements \(a, c \in K^{\times }\) , \(b \in K\) such that \(f(P)(X) = c P(a X + b)\) . When K is a number field or \(K=\mathbb {R}\) , we prove that similar statements hold when f preserves the set of polynomials with a root in K.