Windows 7 - Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

With the speed of today's hardware evolution, most of us geeks are upgrading the hardware more often than operating system. Upgrading hardware can be painfully slow process if we need to reinstall the operating system and all our installed applications, plus transfer program settings and user profiles.

Using sysprep makes this easy. Changing the motherboard, or for instance an old ATI GPU to a new nVidia GPU quite often causes Windows 7 not to be able to boot anymore. This fact is usually accepted by the user, who then reinstalls the OS and all applications and transfers user profiles from a backup location.

Same thing when buying a new computer with completely different hardware setup compared to the old one, or trying to restore a system image to different hardware setup. Normally this would include a complete reinstallation of Windows 7 and all applications.

Why not use sysprep to avoid reinstalling? Here are the different scenarios where you can use it.







Use this method if you:
- Change other hardware components but keep your old HD containing Windows 7

- Move the HD containing Windows 7 to another computer

1. Before installing new hardware, boot Windows 7 normally
2. Run Command Prompt as administrator
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3. Type to Command Prompt: %windir%\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe, and hit Enter
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4. In sysprep dialog that opens, choose System Cleanup Action as Enter System Out-of-Box-Experience (OOBE), select Generalize, select Shutdown Options Shutdown. Click OK
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5. Sysprep generalizes now your Windows 7 setup and shuts down your computer. Do not run any other programs during this phase!
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6. Switch the main power of your PC off and install the new hardware OR dismount the hard disk(s) and mount it (them) to a new computer
7. Boot the PC from sysprep generalized hard disk. You will notice Windows booting as if it was the first boot after installation, installing default drivers and updating registry. One or two reboots are needed, depending on your system specifications
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8. When Windows finally boots up, you will need to enter all information as if this really was a new, fresh installation
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9. Because your old user profiles already exist, Windows does not accept your normal username, but instead you have to create a new temporary user. I use username Test for this purpose
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10. When login screen appears, choose your old user account to login
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11. Windows boots now to default OOBE first boot desktop, with default 800*600 resolution and default theme. All your installed applications are there, as well as your old user profiles and folders. Windows has installed the default drivers for your setup, you can update them if needed
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12. Go to Control Panel > User Accounts and delete the temporary user account (in this case Test) that you just created

Use this method if you:
- Replace the HD containing Windows 7 on your old computer

- Move Windows 7 to a new HD on another computer

1. Follow steps 1 through 5 above (method 1)
2. Boot PC with an imaging CD/DVD (Paragon, Macrium etc.)
3. Create an image of your system
4. Turn PC off, change the hard disk(s) and reboot with imaging application, restoring the image OR boot the new computer with imaging software and restore the image
5. Continue from step 7 above (method 1)

Use this method if you:
- Replace the HD containing Windows 7 on your old computer

- Move Windows 7 to a new HD on another computer

1. Follow steps 1 through 5 above (method 1)
2. Change the hardware componets you want to, letting the old HD be still mounted as system disk OR if transferring to a new computer, mount the old HD to the new computer as system (boot) disk
3. Boot computer normally, continuing from step 7 above (method 1)
4. Launch Windows Seven Backup and Restore, create a complete system image. This tutorial shows you how: Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup
5. Shut down the computer, dismount the HD and mount the new one
6. Boot from Windows 7 installation DVD, choosing Repair > Restore an image, using the image you created in previous step. This tutorial shows you how (from Step Two / 7): System Image Recovery
7. When image is restored, boot your computer normally

This procedure is failsafe, and works every time. There is nothing to worry, but of course it is recommended to make a backup before trying this. I have even used this method when some serious driver issues caused the PC to constantly crash (BSOD), to reset all drivers to Windows defaults and then reinstalling them one by one to find the culprit.






I have tested all above mentioned methods with all versions of Windows 7, from Starter to Enterprise. It works every time, with one exception: for reasons unknown to me, sysprep seems sometimes dislike Windows Media Player networking service, which is by default started every time Windows 7 starts. In about every third time I've done this, I've got an error message when trying to generalize:



However, this is not a big problem. You just need to stop the WMP networking service, and run sysprep with generalize option again. You can stop the service in question by typing net stop WMPNetworkSvc to command prompt, and hitting Enter:



If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask.

Happy computing!

Kari