Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

How to Transfer your Complete Windows 7 Installation to New Computer​

To start, a warning from Microsoft:

   Note

Important

You must use the Sysprep /generalize command to generalize a complete Windows installation before you can use the installation for deployment to a new computer, whether you use imaging, hard disk duplication, or another method. Moving or copying a Windows image to a different computer without running the Sysprep /generalize command is not supported.

This tutorial will show you how to do the transfer.

   Information

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.

   Warning

Using this method causes Windows 7 to lose all activation information, and it needs to be reactivated afterwards. If your Windows 7 is an OEM version, you might not be able to reactivate it, at least not without phone activation option.

I do not recommend to use this method on RAID systems. All experiments on RAID I know have failed.

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.

   Warning

An upgraded Windows cannot be sysprepped. As this method is based in sysprepping, this tutorial is valid only for Windows setups which have not been upgraded.

This means that if you have for instance in-place upgraded Vista to Seven, or using Anytime Upgrade upgraded for instance a Home Premium to Ultimate, you cannot sysprep and this tutorial cannot be used in your case.

Notice that a repair install is also an upgrade install, so if you have ever done a repair install (= in-place upgrade to same edition), you cannot sysprep.

PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO CREATE A SYSTEM IMAGE BEFORE PROCEEDING!​

As you can read on this thread, on rare occasions this method does not work. If this happens, you can always restore your system using your backup image.

Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup
System Image Recovery

IE10 Users: Please read this article first: Sysprep Fatal Error With IE 10 (FIX) | System Administration

METHOD ONE

Changing hardware components but keeping old hard disk(s)

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. Disconnect all external hardware except mouse, keyboard and main display. If your system folders are located only on C: drive, disconnect all other hard disks except that containing the C:. In case of relocated system folders, for instance the profile folder Users located in another drive and other system folders on C:, first move the relocated system folders back to C: then disconnect all other drives. Reboot after this
3. Run Command Prompt as administrator
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4. Type to Command Prompt: %windir%\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe, and hit Enter
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5. 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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6. 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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7. 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
8. 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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9. 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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10. 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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11. When login screen appears, choose your old user account to login
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12. 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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13. Go to Control Panel > User Accounts and delete the temporary user account (in this case Test) that you just created

METHOD TWO

Change the hard disk(s) or move Windows 7 setup to a new computer using third party imaging software

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.). See Macrium Reflect Free:at our sister site TenForums.com: Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect Windows 10 Backup Restore Tutorials . Also see this post for a practical tip to create a Macrium system image.
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)

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.

   Note

What does Sysprep generalizing do to my Windows 7 setup?

• All system specific information is removed or uninstalled
• Security ID (SID) of your hardware setup is reseted
• All system restore points are deleted
• All event logs are deleted
• All personalization is removed (taskbar, toolbars, folder options, start orb etc.)
• Built-in administrator account is disabled (if it was enabled) and needs to be re-enabled after the transfer if needed

What happens when booting first time after sysprep generalizing?

• First boot configuration is run
• New SID is created
• Re-arm counter is reseted if not already re-armed three times
• Windows 7 is booted using first boot default drivers and settings

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

EDIT: A Useful tip from xxxwea, as later confirmed by Victor:

Kari, just a suggestion.

You might note in the tutorial that if on first booting Windows can't finish configuring, a reboot into safe mode, then a normal reboot will allow it to finish successfully.

This has happened to me both times I used a sysprepped system drive in a new computer. I found the answer to this problem buried deep in this thread the first time I ran into it, and the same thing happened yesterday on a different computer.

It's a seemingly very silly solution, but it works. I do believe many people have abandoned their sysprep work when they encounter the problem.

I think the solution deserves more visibility.

 

[SevenRick]

Kari,

I successfully ran sysprep, moved the ssd to the new machine and get the following errors and bsod:

1. Auto check program not found
2. Then windows logo, then blue screen flash with error c000021a "session manager initialization system process terminated."
3. immediate reboot

I was really hoping this would work, any ideas?

Would the inability to not find the "auto check program" upon booting the syspreped drive have something to do with the "system reserve" partition being altered and Windows looking at the "C" drive at boot instead of system reserve partition?

Does sysprep work with Windows Ultimate7 64 installations that have the "system reserve" partition?


Thank you,

Rick

 

[Kari]

Does sysprep work with Windows Ultimate7 64 installations that have the "system reserve" partition?


Thank you,

Rick

Yes. I have successfully sysprepped my PCs with system reserved partition.

 

[Victor S]

I successfully ran sysprep, moved the ssd to the new machine and get the following errors and bsod:

1. Auto check program not found
2. Then windows logo, then blue screen flash with error c000021a "session manager initialization system process terminated."
3. immediate reboot

I was really hoping this would work, any ideas?

Would the inability to not find the "auto check program" upon booting the syspreped drive have something to do with the "system reserve" partition being altered and Windows looking at the "C" drive at boot instead of system reserve partition?

See this.
Windows sysprep troubleshooting - wiki

"Autochk program not found."

What's to lose?

 

[boyans]

Very useful tutorial and interesting thread.

Seems SF have a good solution to most major Win7 problems.

 

[SevenRick]

I successfully ran sysprep, moved the ssd to the new machine and get the following errors and bsod:

1. Auto check program not found
2. Then windows logo, then blue screen flash with error c000021a "session manager initialization system process terminated."
3. immediate reboot

I was really hoping this would work, any ideas?

Would the inability to not find the "auto check program" upon booting the syspreped drive have something to do with the "system reserve" partition being altered and Windows looking at the "C" drive at boot instead of system reserve partition?

See this.
Windows sysprep troubleshooting - wiki

"Autochk program not found."

What's to lose?

Thank you for the link Victor.

By the time I got your response I was three quarters of the way through a fresh install. It took me literally one solid week of hard work from buying the new computer parts to getting back 97% of where I was on my old machine.

When I get some free time, I will try the solutions offered in the link and see if it works.

(I did manage to get my drive booted by stripping away as many drivers as I could manually before I moved it to another machine. I was happy to see it booted but it seemed quite unstable, so hence, I started from scratch with a clean install rebuilding the software last Tuesday).

 

[phamine]

What can you do if the donor hard drive has more than 1 partition?
Sysprep is not working in my case.

 

[emueyes]

This discussion has been exactly what I need, has shown me just how many gotchas there are in this, and methods to get it done right. But I still have a few queries. In particular, it looks as though a means for backing up user data may be needed.

My situation is thus: I have Windows 7 64bit Ultimate on my machine. Its 'Program Files' are located in a separate partition, and some of the user's file (My Documents, My Pictures etc) are on another drive altogether. All in all I've tried to keep this machine's C: partition as clean as possible of non-OS stuff.

I now wish to migrate to an SSD, and a new motherboard. Might as well be a new machine, but I'm keeping the CPU and graphics card, and the case and PSU, so I can't run machines in parallel. And I most certainly don't want to just reinstall everything.

The concept of creating a 'sysprep' installation is great ! Thanks Kari, what a bonus that is Thanks to MS as well, they obviously do listen.

With my penchant for keeping data separate from the OS, I know it's up to me to transfer everything else across, and I started thinking of user data, and where the line is drawn. The things I've set up myself are obviously my responsibility, but I've been looking at the need for the 'Backup User Data' Microsoft utility as well. If I save a picture in My Pictures, will it be migrated with sysprep, or with Backup User Data. What about the custom definitions for a third party antivirus package such as AVG? Or rule sets for Comodo firewall, or other stuff in AppData? I guess the most important things will be email settings and data, network authentication details.

The essential information, though, is knowing just what is being backup up, and making sure I don't miss anything.


Rob

 

[Parks1993]

Problem

I loved this tutorial, very helpful!

But I just booted up my sysprepped HDD and when it goes to the "Setup is Starting Services" part of the process it brings up an error:

"Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer."

I have tried restarting a few times, same thing. I hope there is a fix for this or maybe I could try inserting my windows 7 disk and repair or something. I backed up everything important and it would not be the end of the world for a clean install but I really don't want to :|

 

[sap81uk]

I am looking to sysprep my system for use on another system. When I boot the hard drive onto the new computer will everything be the same as before? Like for example my files and folders on the desktop would be the same, what will be different?

 

[edison]

Hi Kari I am about to relace my motherboard,Cpu & memory. My PC is presently setup as a daul boot system useing 2 seperate hard drives one for each operating system XP & windows 7 ultimate. Could you please explain to me how to use windows sysprep in this type of situation?

Thanks Edison

 

[Hitch0055]

A question Kari,
used METHOD ONE:did everything as you said in"command prompt" typed in %windir%\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe, the OOBE came up as you said.Even a fatal error occurred box came up also,clicked OK,tried what you said typing> net stop WMPNetworkSVC comes up invalid command; then tried> NET STOP WMPNetworkSVC and it comes up with system error 5 has occurred.
Have you got any ideas to help me as I want to change my motherboard as part of a computer upgrade.Am running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 bit.

 

[Isyther]

I still have one question after reading this tutorial. I have a laptop wit windows 7 Home Premium on it can I completly romove windows 7 off it and put it on my desktop? My laptop right now I about to bite the dust, and I built my desktop from scratch. Right now my desktop has windows xp and i was looking to upgrade it.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I still have one question after reading this tutorial. I have a laptop wit windows 7 Home Premium on it can I completly romove windows 7 off it and put it on my desktop? My laptop right now I about to bite the dust, and I built my desktop from scratch. Right now my desktop has windows xp and i was looking to upgrade it.

You cannot do that if your laptop has an OEM Windows 7 license, which it probably does. OEM licenses are tied to the original machine---which means the original motherboard.

If you have a RETAIL license of some type, yes, you could do it. Retail licenses can be installed to any number of computers and motherboards, BUT ONLY TO ONE AT A TIME.

 

[Krackerjax]

I followed everything and after trying out everything I could, I got it to work.

Everything is fine now but every time I boot I get "Setup is updating registry settings". How can I fix this? It's not much of a problem just a nuisance really.

Thanks.

I would appreciate it if anyone could answer this, as i am having the same issue.

Thank you.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

I still have one question after reading this tutorial. I have a laptop wit windows 7 Home Premium on it can I completly romove windows 7 off it and put it on my desktop? My laptop right now I about to bite the dust, and I built my desktop from scratch. Right now my desktop has windows xp and i was looking to upgrade it.

Hiyya and welcome Isyther as ignaztsonic says - slightly different though is that I had an OEM on a refurbished machine in which the motherboard died and a phone call to Microsoft and they let me transfer the OEM to another machine that had previously been Vista (the other machine I had slipped in a SSD of course).

My point is for the cost of a local phone call what have you got to lose ?

 

[derekimo]

I still have one question after reading this tutorial. I have a laptop wit windows 7 Home Premium on it can I completly romove windows 7 off it and put it on my desktop? My laptop right now I about to bite the dust, and I built my desktop from scratch. Right now my desktop has windows xp and i was looking to upgrade it.

Hiyya and welcome Isyther as ignaztsonic says - slightly different though is that I had an OEM on a refurbished machine in which the motherboard died and a phone call to Microsoft and they let me transfer the OEM to another machine that had previously been Vista (the other machine I had slipped in a SSD of course).

My point is for the cost of a local phone call what have you got to lose ?

I think the key points here are yours originally came with Vista, so your OEM was a separate purchase.

The OEM ignatzasonic is speaking about is the one that originally came with Isyther's laptop.

So, if it is like yours, sure it's worth a call.

If it's what ignatzasonic is referring to, it is indeed tied to the motherboard.

If it is a separate retail license, none of the above matters, it can be freely moved to another computer.

 

[Kari]

I have been on holiday, only checked in for personal messages. I will read recent posts and will try to answer them when I have time.

Sorry.

Kari

 

[unifex]

Hi Kari, excellent tutorial!

I have a question though. When I installed Windows 7 on my system I followed some of the ideas I found on this forum and installed Windows on a SSD while moving the Users, Logs, and some other folders on a HDD. The rational for this was to avoid frequent writing to the SSD.

Now, I bought a new motherboard and a new processor, but would rather keep my old SSD, basically just now I have no time to reinstall all of the programs on my computer and redo all of the personalizations. Sure, some of those will be lost as you've described, but at least not everything.

Now, given that the system installation is spread between two drives, what would be the best way to proceed: try to plug both drives in similarly numbered SATA ports and hope for the best, or should I first move the files back to the SSD and then proceed with the transfer?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Brink]

Hello unifex,

I would recommend to move them back to their default locations on the SSD first to help make sure that would be one less possible issue during the transfer.

 

[Victor S]

Second what Brink said. Besides hearing that "excessive writes" isn't a practical issue with SSD's, putting system folders on a non-system drive greatly complicates imaging.
When I tested sysprep, restoring an image to a PC with very different hardware, I didn't notice loss of personal settings. Didn't dig in hard, but the desktop had all my program shortcuts and I did use a few. Tweaking my single account back to admin was the only task, as I recall.