Tricky question? I think so but maybe you know better...

In the early stages of a long and fairly un-illustrious career in IT, I tried a couple times to mount a HDD carrying an installed operating system, into another environment, only to have it refuse to boot.

Like, a drive might have been in computer X, running quite happily, but when removed and mounted onto a different motherboard in computer Y, it wouldn't work.

*Can't be done, of course, as most of you people know. There's usually a bleat from the system that it can't find its old familiar surroundings. So I never tried it again.

But this option just occurred to me. How about if you could first STRIP away the environmental data from the system disk? In which case the drive could then be dropped onto a newer motherboard without any more complications than installing new drivers.

What possible use could that be, you ask? Well, one obvious benefit is that you could equip your base system with every possible Windows Update, then image or clone it, and the next time you upgraded your hardware, you'd have makings of your new system, lacking only the newer board's drivers. A bit like an integrated installer built from a base ISO and patched with updates via DISM or some other process, but perhaps a little easier.

Feasible? And before you dismiss the idea out of hand, remember that every fresh Windows install knows nothing about the environment into which you're about to drop it.

So, how can you return your system to that updated but innocent state?

*Actually, and I'm talking W98 days, it DID work once or twice.

But this option just occurred to me. How about if you could first STRIP away the environmental data from the system disk? In which case the drive could then be dropped onto a newer motherboard without any more complications than installing new drivers.

The problem is that this environmental data is critical to even the most basic operation of the OS. Without it you have only a pile of useless code an an unbootable system. You don't have the prerequisites to begin installing drivers.

Feasible? And before you dismiss the idea out of hand, remember that every fresh Windows install knows nothing about the environment into which you're about to drop it.

One of the things the OS installer does is to learn about it's environment and load appropriate drivers. The installer isn't running Windows at this point and cannot use these drivers. It is using very basic drivers that are adequate for it's purpose but useless to Windows. Only after the first reboot does Windows start to function, although at this point at only a very primitive level.

Layback Bear, thanks. Sounds very much like what I was speculating about. Kari says it's real easy and simple. Ha!

Maybe not for THIS bear, who's actually a bear of little brain and easily confused. But I'll read his stuff and hope it sinks in (instead of in one eye and out the other)