Win 7 transfer to Win8.1 Laptop: SysPrep Generalize vs Disk2VHD? Both?

Win 7 transfer migrate to Win8.1 Laptop: SysPrep Generalize v/s Disk2VHD or both?

With regard to licensing/ activation:
I will figure out what to do and will obtain that from my contacts at Microsoft.
If you have any suggestions on that given these are 'unique' transfers, please do suggest what might work and I can ask my connects at MS.

Goal:

1) TRANSPLANT existing [Win7 SP1 Ultimate][Thinkpad Drivers] FROM OLD [Thinkpad Laptop][SLIC 2.1 Enabled]
IMPLANT TO NEW [Toshiba Laptop][Win 8.1 Preinstalled] maintain Preinstall

2) Enable Native Dual Boot on [Toshiba Laptop] for both:
[Win7 SP1 Ultimate]
[Win 8.1 Preinstalled]
(What would you use/ choose for dual boot?)

2 PATHWAYS AS LISTED BELOW:
- Please guide on proper steps to do both or one/ do advise?
- How are they different from each other and what/how do they manage device drivers/ sanitize drivers?
- Or do we need to use both? HOW? Thoughts (Googled both together.. lots of links)
e.g. Creating Bootable VHDs with Disk2VHD | Systems Management content from Windows IT Pro

PATH A. SysPrep Generalize Windows 7 to OOBE = [Win7 SP1 Ultimate][Minus OLD Drivers]
Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

Windows 7 System Preparation Tool is a powerful, native Windows tool. When for instance used in so called Audit Mode, it let's you to freely configure Windows 7 to be then deployed to other computers as hardware independent image.

In this tutorial we use System Preparation Tool (sysprep) to prepare your Windows 7 installation to be moved to a new computer, keeping all your installed applications, program settings and user profiles. You can use this method for instance when you have bought a new PC and want to transfer your existing setup completely, without need to reinstall everything, or when you want to make major hardware changes like change the motherboard or GPU, which would usually cause Windows to stop booting normally.

On: [Toshiba Laptop]
Repartition and Create space alongside [Win 8.1 Preinstalled] for [Win7 SP1 Ultimate][Minus OLD Drivers] partiation

Enable Dual Boot

PATH B. Disk2VHD P2V (Physical to Virtual) VHD Conversion
Disk2vhd

Disk2VHD > create a VHDX (check all partitions)
Copy VHDX over to your new laptop, double click the file > CMD as Admin > bcdboot D:\Windows (where as D:\ is the path of the new mounted VHD)
Native Boot VHD

Enable Dual Boot

Comments & Questions encountered.

- This VHD when it boots will boot on NATIVE hardware or as a VM under Hyper-V ?
- Is a VHD a driver sanitized, driver agnostic generic Drive Image?
- How do DRIVERS from OLD Laptop (to remove) and NEW Laptop come into play (when executing) (if at all?)

- Windows should "reconfigure" it self when you first boot it up on a different hardware, normally at least, ofc you may need to apply new drivers if some things don't work.
- There is nothing easier/safer than VHD booting, it doesn't screw around with your native Installation on the HDD :P I used VHD booting a lot and honestly it's one of the best features Microsoft ever added into Windows, just keep in mind this only works with W7 Professional/Enterprise and W8 Pro/Enterprise

If VHDs are so good & portable, why would we want to use PARTITIONS at all? (Assuming we had enough drive space).

I will have to add drivers for sure as its a new laptop.

My question is does the VHD get CLEANED of the PREVIOUS DRIVER/ HARDWARE PROFILE on the HDD? And when it re configures with NEW HARDWARE does it clean the previous out and or has both included on it.

Please let me know on the above 2 pathways given the outline:
- Preparation on Source Machine (OLD):
- Use on Destination Machine (NEW):
- Restore on Source Machine (OLD):

- I'd like to have ADDITIONAL CLARITY on VHDs & the way they HANDLE their HARDWARE/ DEVICE DRIVERS

Can you help with that?
No one seems to have so far given me a clear understanding of what happens to the DRIVER profiles attached to Windows.
- Before VHD creation
- After VHD creation
- On First NATIVE BOOT of VHD on new machine
- Later NATIVE BOOT of VHD with new machine drivers ??

VHD Boot issues: Windows 7 SP1 .vhdx on Win 8.1 Host. Help fix it.

Shenj said:

I don't know if there is any good tutorial for it, it's really fairly simple anyway, if you need a proper tutorial you need to do some google-fu :P

Disk Management > Select Windows partition > Shrink.
Disk2VHD > create a VHDX (check all partitions)
Copy VHDX over to your new laptop, double click the file > CMD as Admin > bcdboot D:\Windows (where as D:\ is the path of the new mounted VHD)

Should do it, you only need to shrink if you don't have enough space on your new laptop/don't want it to use that much space, the VHD itself will be much smaller but once you boot into it it will occupy that 256GB of space so you may want to reduce it's size first. If you need to shrink the VHDX later on, you need windows 8.1 with activated Hyper-V (activating it over windows features and reboot) to use the powershell command "resize-vhd"

I am getting this with the VHDX boot. Thoughts? I am sure this is a regular occurrence that has an easy fix.

Code:

When I reboot, the screen where I can choose OS appears, I choose Windows 7 but a black screen with this message shows;

File: \windows\system32\winload.efi
Status: 0xc0000428
Info: The digital signature for this file couldn't be verified

If it helps, this Win 7 instance first had a 200MB Boot partition ahead of it and then it was eliminated and all of it included into the Win7 partition.

A snippet from BCDEDIT output

Code:

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {LongHexKey}
device                  vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D201\SSD_P1_X.VHDX
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 7
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
osdevice                vhd=[C:]\MIGRATION\D201\SSD_P1_X.VHDX
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {LongHexKey}
nx                      OptIn
detecthal               Yes

VHD File is in C Drive at pointed out location
When mounted/ attached from Windows 8 host instance it shows up as E: drive as there is DVD at D:

Any thoughts?

if you got he vhd,vhdx out its like making an exact copy of ur hard rive logicaly. so if u transfer over to new hardware . u will get a bsod. unless u can repair the OS and make it use general drivers heard of this working. no gurantee.. f8 repair menu or w.e means to get to WinRE and repair.
. word of advise sysprep /generealize (%winroot%\windows\system32\sysprep,open elevated command prompt) ur laptop and use imagx (WinPE) to capture the ur pc as an .wim file (windows image) and apply it to a vhd (imagex again) and boot from it on ur old laptop and see how it works. (attach using diskpart or dsik management) and see if u like it. . if u dont want to apply the image to a vhd then apply the image to the new laptop. back up what u have on it now i.e make an image with image x for safety and since you will use sysprep /generalize u will rid it of hardware specific stuff like drivers and it will configure it self to the new laptops hardware and avoid the said bsod ............tldnr the rest of ur post hope this helps .

ssvegeta96 said:

if you got he vhd,vhdx out its like making an exact copy of ur hard rive logicaly. so if u transfer over to new hardware . u will get a bsod. unless u can repair the OS and make it use general drivers heard of this working. no gurantee.. f8 repair menu or w.e means to get to WinRE and repair.
. word of advise:
- sysprep /generealize (%winroot%\windows\system32\sysprep,open elevated command prompt) ur laptop and
- use imagx (WinPE) to capture the ur pc as an .wim file (windows image) and
- apply it to a vhd (imagex again) and
- boot from it on ur old laptop and see how it works. (attach using diskpart or dsik management) and see if u like it. .
- if u dont want to apply the image to a vhd then apply the image to the new laptop.
- back up what u have on it now i.e make an image with image x for safety and
- since you will use sysprep /generalize u will rid it of hardware specific stuff like drivers and it will configure it self to the new laptops hardware and avoid the said bsod ............tldnr the rest of ur post hope this helps .

Win 7 transfer migrate to Win8.1 Laptop: SysPrep Generalize v/s Disk2VHD or both? - Boot virtual machines - reboot.pro

well there you go might want to add usmt or windows easy trasnfer to transfer profile and settings

Hi there

I think the OP misses a salient point here -- a lot of Windows 8.1 computers come now with UEFI and PROTECTED BOOT -- this rather changes the whole kybosh.

You'll need in any case to DISABLE protected boot in order to load Windows 7. On a corporate computer I'd say that for once something sensible is available. By enabling Protected boot you can ensure that your users can't boot alternative OS'es from their own USB sticks etc.

(Note though if you do this you will disable a very useful Windows 8.1 Enterprise feature -- Windows to Go - this runs an entire Windows 8.1 system from an external device even if there's NO HDD in the laptop or its broken. Windows 8.1 to go is actually very useful if you are a roving consultant and want your own versions say of Office in your language -- nothing worse than trying to handle a FRENCH version of Office 2007 when creating an ENGLISH document !! for example).

Another problem is the UEFI / Non UEFI systems in modern laptops. You'd probably have to undo the "GPT" format if installing an old version of W7 and also disable the UEFI system via the BIOS.

I think your best bet would be to FORGET messing around this way with these laptops -- if you want to provide a Windows 7 environment for your Corporate staff - why don't you simply create the W7 VDI (Virtual desktop infrastructure) so when the laptop connects to the company Lan the W7 VDI gets logged on to in the start up process. Simply have it as a start up logon app.

The whole UEFI / Protected boot thing could cause mega problems if SOME laptops have it while others don't --you are just creating unnecessary work. Just go for the W7 VDI solution --might be a ONE TIME bit of more work but it's far simply after and ONLY ONE w7 to maintain afterwards too. !!

The question - unless I've mis-understood it is to transfer W7 on to a W8 computer -- well why bother with all the sysprepping etc -- just install it "natively" or load up VMware player and have it as a VM or if it's corporate wide go for the W7 VDI method. W7 IS transferable to a new machine unless it's OEM. Enterprise / Ultimate /Pro / Home Premium all are transferrable to new machines with no problems.

Cheers
jimbo