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.

 

[Gamkutopolowk]

net stop WMPNetworkSvc !!! thank you great worked

 

[Muffinator1]

Mine keeps rebooting during the process... Any reason why?

 

[Kari]

Hi Muffinator, welcome to the Seven Forums.

Rebooting when? While sysprepping or when booting the new setup?

 

[jmelan]

Thanks kari. I was afraid this would be the case. But I did have some luck as it were. I continued searching on other blogs and found this:

The problem seems to be the registy entries made by sysprep, which probably should have, but didnt, change at the first reboot.
To confirm, after a clean image capture with WDS and install, upon the first reboot the system will not go past the message:

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

THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED

1. When the error message appears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11
2. open the REGEDIT
3. navigate to hklm\system\setup
4. change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe\windeploy.exe)
5. change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1)
6. change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice)
7. change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4)
8. change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1)
9. change SetupType to 0 (was 2)
10. change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1)

11. exit REGEDIT and reboot
It Worked!!!! You can't believe how relieved I was and it went right to my home home screen with all my icons and background intact but at a low screen resolution. I couldn't believe it at first because I put about 7 or 8 hours into it with most of that being trying to find a solution.

I only want to point out one observation with the above process and that is item number 5 did not exist in my hklm\system\setup folder so I revised the rest and voilà!!

I post this solution that may work for some others here and considering it only took about 10 minutes to make the changes, it is certainly worth the try if you're still stuck.

Thanks again Kari. Your tip sheet saved me massive amounts of heart ache.

Regards,
Paul

Well I was stuck in a reboot loop and safe mode told me I had to restart. I ran Paragon on auto, but i was right back in the reboot loop after restarting.

This was the only thing that worked. Thanks!!!!!

I had to use Shift+F10, and I did not have either 5 or 8 as an option.

After this method, I went straight to the login screen! Still had to update the drivers from the motherboard disc, but ran into no further isues.

---

I was transferring a Windows 7 x64 install that had been upgraded from Vista x64. The original CPU was the q6600, the new system is a Z87 board with a haswell chip and UEFI BIOS. My OS drive was a single drive, but I also had an Intel RST RAID setup for the other 2 drives on the system. I had IE10 and had to disable the WMC network service.

So pretty much everything that could possible cause a problem was there. There was enough info in this thread to get through all of the issues.

 

[Jeff1]

Great walk-through Kari, which I plan on using today. I have a question before I proceed with Method 1 to replace a motherboard in a family computer. You mention going to Command Prompt and running as administrator. When I do this I get C:\Users\mycomputername but if I go CMD and run as administrator, I get C:\Windows\system32 Does it matter which one of these I use? Will it make a difference in the outcome?

 

[Kari]

A misunderstanding perhaps? See Method One, Step 2 again:

2. Run Command Prompt as administrator

You must run the cmd as administrator, meaning it should be in C:\Windows\System32 folder when you start it. Simply right click the Command Prompt in Start Menu and select Run as administrator from context menu.

Kari

 

[Jeff1]

Hi Kari me again, I dropped you a line this morning. I am going through the instructions to replace a mobo. I did the net stop WMPNetworkSvc and it showed that it stopped working. Then I proceeded to the next step, got the System Prep tool window, put in the info as noted, it starts running and I still get a fatal error message. Any thoughts as to why? I was hoping to avoid reloading the entire OS. I do have a system image with everything backed up. Would it be easier/alternative to swap out the mobo, do a system image restore then update the drivers for the new mobo. Thanks - Jeff

 

[Kari]

Have you booted to Audit Mode before running sysprep, or are you doing sysprep when booted normally to Windows? Do you get any error messages other than fatal error, and if any what are they?

How was your Windows 7 installed (clean install or upgrade), have you done a so called repair install to your current Windows setup?

OEM or retail windows, where and how have you got it?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Hi Kari me again, I dropped you a line this morning. I am going through the instructions to replace a mobo. I did the net stop WMPNetworkSvc and it showed that it stopped working. Then I proceeded to the next step, got the System Prep tool window, put in the info as noted, it starts running and I still get a fatal error message. Any thoughts as to why? I was hoping to avoid reloading the entire OS. I do have a system image with everything backed up. Would it be easier/alternative to swap out the mobo, do a system image restore then update the drivers for the new mobo. Thanks - Jeff

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

I do have a system image with everything backed up. Would it be easier/alternative to swap out the mobo, do a system image restore then update the drivers for the new mobo

Indeed you can try that. Attach the external drive with backup to usb2.0 port!

If system not booting at all afterwards (most likely stop 0x7B) ... http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html

 

[Jeff1]

So here's where I am at. Tried to edit the registry and it gave me an error msg (Error writing the value's new contents). I tried it for each one and it gave me the same error message each time. So I removed IE 10 and it went back to 8. Then I did the system prep process and it worked.(no error message) The computer shut down. I removed the old mobo, installed the new one, started up the computer, it said new processor installed, went into the BIOS, made sure the SSD was the boot drive and restarted the computer. When it came back on it said (Reboot and select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key). I went back into the BIOS and notice my SSD is showing as a SSD-Generic. At this point I am stuck as I can't get it to boot from this point. It is an Asus P8Q77-M mobo.

 

[Kari]

SSD is something I know nothing about, let's see if some of SSD specialists have an idea. Worst case scenario is the reinstall.

 

[Kaktussoft]

So here's where I am at. Tried to edit the registry and it gave me an error msg (Error writing the value's new contents). I tried it for each one and it gave me the same error message each time. So I removed IE 10 and it went back to 8. Then I did the system prep process and it worked.(no error message) The computer shut down. I removed the old mobo, installed the new one, started up the computer, it said new processor installed, went into the BIOS, made sure the SSD was the boot drive and restarted the computer. When it came back on it said (Reboot and select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key). I went back into the BIOS and notice my SSD is showing as a SSD-Generic. At this point I am stuck as I can't get it to boot from this point. It is an Asus P8Q77-M mobo.

How did you fill the SSD with data? From backup on external harddisk?

Try to boot from win7 install disk (repair computer) or win7 system repair disk. Does it see the SSD and files on it? Enter command prompt and do DIR C: or DIR E: or DIR F:

 

[Desther]

What happens if I don't do sysprep before swapping my drive into a completely new pc?

 

[Kaktussoft]

What happens if I don't do sysprep before swapping my drive into a completely new pc?

So you swap whole pc. We call that a motherboard swap. In case your motherboard is faulty you can't even sysprep. In that case http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html


Most important is:

• Both old and new motherboard have disk connected to SATA, or both IDE
• They must use same SATA driver (or IDE driver)

So replace driver with the standard "Standard AHCI1.0 Serial ATA controller" before swap. After that you can swap to new pc without issues (not always).

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html

Of course install all new pc drivers afterwards.

 

[Jeff1]

Long story short, looks like everything is working now. I'm not totally sure why, but it is. I restarted the computer a few times, went into the BIOS several times and at first my SSD was not being recognized, then suddenly, there it was. I made it the boot drive and then the rest of System Prep happened as Kari said it would. I followed along, deleted the Test account I had set up and now I am updating the drivers for the new mobo. Thanks for everyone's help, especially Kari. We can consider this resolved and closed. Not sure how to do that though....lol! Cheers!

 

[Kari]

Thanks for telling the good news, Jeff.

 

[Desther]

What happens if I don't do sysprep before swapping my drive into a completely new pc?

So you swap whole pc. We call that a motherboard swap. In case your motherboard is faulty you can't even sysprep. In that case http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html


Most important is:

• Both old and new motherboard have disk connected to SATA, or both IDE
• They must use same SATA driver (or IDE driver)

So replace driver with the standard "Standard AHCI1.0 Serial ATA controller" before swap. After that you can swap to new pc without issues (not always).

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html

Of course install all new pc drivers afterwards.

Thank you for the reply. My SATA controller looks like this:

So should it be ok just to swap straight into a new pc even without Paragon?

 

[Kaktussoft]

What happens if I don't do sysprep before swapping my drive into a completely new pc?

So you swap whole pc. We call that a motherboard swap. In case your motherboard is faulty you can't even sysprep. In that case http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html



Most important is:

• Both old and new motherboard have disk connected to SATA, or both IDE
• They must use same SATA driver (or IDE driver)

So replace driver with the standard "Standard AHCI1.0 Serial ATA controller" before swap. After that you can swap to new pc without issues (not always).

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html

Of course install all new pc drivers afterwards.

Thank you for the reply. My SATA controller looks like this:

So should it be ok just to swap straight into a new pc even without Paragon?

I think it should work without PARAGON. Better do now:

1. Install new motherboard drivers. (if possible)
2. Uninstall VGA adapters/sound drivers/network drivers as well.
3. Uninstall related software to point 2.
4. shutdown, power off, replace motherboard

Step 2 and 3 are just to cleanup things. With wrong graphics driver... system can have problem booting. But you can fix that from "safe mode" (uninstall driver within safe mode).

Most important thing: It must be booting whatsoever. SATA driver ... is already default, so fine. If it boots, you can fix problems within win7.

 

[andrew129260]

Great job! Thank you!

 

[dilipb]

This sounds promising except for the initial warning about RAID. I'm going from a system with a RAID data drive (the boot drive is not RAIDed) to a new system that has an SSD boot drive and, again, RAIDed data drive. I can easily clone the data drive, but what is the easiest approach to get my system looking the same as the old one?

The old computer is Intel Core i7 870 Quad Core 2.93 GHz processor with 16GB memory. I can't find the specs of the new one I'm going to get, but it's a current Intel chipset. Windows 7 OEM is installed on both - I bought a license key for each one (and hope to sell the old computer with Windows 7 ready to go for the new person). Thanks!

Dilip