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.

 

[Kari]

... but for my case, I can't use the tutorial discribed at the start of this thread ?

The answer is a very clear Yes and No .

Yes:

If your wife and you are happy for her to continue using her existing 32 bit Windows on the PC which currently runs the 64 bit Windows, you can use the Method One in this tutorial to simply generalize her existing Windows HDD and move it to your son's PC. Her Windows would be the same, all her software installed and intact as well as the personal files, your son's old PC would now run the wife's old 32 bit Windows using the HDD from her original PC.

If the son's old PC has better / bigger HDD and the wife would like to get her Windows to that HDD, you can use Method Two.

No:

If your wife would like to start using a 64 bit Windows currently installed on your son's old PC, the correct way is to create a user account for her on that PC, make it an administrator account, delete your son's account and then install all software she needs on that uninstalling the software from your son which she do not need. Finally, copy her files from the old PC to this new PC.

Kari

 

[PaulVdB]

Wow Kari, you're faster than lightning ! I believe that there's only a few microseconds between me clicking the "Post Quick Reply"-button and your answer ! THANKS !
But you gave me a quite clear answer. I'll carefully read again the options one and two, but most likely I'll go for option 2.
There is just one more question that I would like to ask you : will the old computer still be 100% functional after doing the "Sysprep" etc? In other words: Does Sysprep make changes to the OS, installed apps, etc? And if it does, are those changes easy and 100% reversable ? You see : Before I decide to do this transfer I want to take in account the worst case scenario : Having TWO unusable computers, ONE angry wife and MANY hours of work to get at least one computer working again ... If nothing changes on the old computer, then I can experiment to your heart's content...
Thanks in advance, Kari !

 

[Kari]

I'm an insomniac, that's why I hang here.

There is just one more question that I would like to ask you : will the old computer still be 100% functional after doing the "Sysprep" etc? In other words: Does Sysprep make changes to the OS, installed apps, etc? And if it does, are those changes easy and 100% reversable ?

What the procedure does is it removes all hardware related information from the system. This includes hardware drivers, hardware entries in registry and so on. The only thing that happens to the old Windows PC is that when it will be booted next time, it has lost its activation and performs a so called OOBE first run boot as if it was a new PC booted first time.

The OOBE boot means it will start almost from the beginning, from Step 11 in this tutorial: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

It will ask the main user's name and creates an account for this user. Because the system already has existing user accounts, it does not accept any username already present. Using myself as an example, I have a user account Kari. When I generalize Windows and then boot it first time, I arrive to that dialog shown in Step 11 in tutorial I linked to above. Now I can't use username Kari, so I create an account named Dummy, and finally when in Windows, delete this Dummy account. You just need it to get through the OOBE boot.

Windows will now reinstall those hardware drivers it can, check the Device Manager if something is still missing and install the drivers. All software and personal files are still there and intact and the PC is as it was before.

About activation, you noticed this warning at the beginning of the tutorial:

   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.

You see : Before I decide to do this transfer I want to take in account the worst case scenario : Having TWO unusable computers, ONE angry wife and MANY hours of work to get at least one computer working again ... If nothing changes on the old computer, then I can experiment to your heart's content...
Thanks in advance, Kari !

I always recommend making a full system image before doing this, to be sure that you can restore the PC as it was if something goes wrong.

About the angry wife issue, I'm four times happily divorced so I know what you mean...

Kari

 

[goWarriors]

Hi Kari,

I run into a problem when using Method 3. After running sysprep, I can't use any Windows services, so I can't create a system image. What can I do to fix this?

 

[Kari]

Windows native backup has issues in creating the image in Audit Mode. I just removed Method Three from the tutorial, I will rewrite it as soon as I find some extra time. In the mean time use the Method Two.

Your fix for now is to reboot normally, let Windows go through the so called OOBE boot and restore everything as it was, then follow the steps in Method Two and create the system image with Macrium Reflect Free. You will find a link to Macrium tutorial in Method Two part of this tutorial.

 

[A Guy]

Welcome to Seven Forums goWarriors. Just had to commend you on your user name

A Guy

 

[allowingtoo]

New Computer Windows 8 Old HD W7 64

My Lenovo U350 died on me. I'm pretty sure it was the motherboard since there is no power going to it at all. Good battery - changed power cord etc. Anyway - I bought a temporary laptop but the problem is - it comes with Windows 8. Not a touchscreen. I need what I have on my old hard drive. There is a program on there that will not run on Windows 8. I've read through the UEFI thread but that just talks about a clean install of Windows and I want to swap out the Hard Drive.

This thread talks about swapping out the Hard Drive but since my laptop has already died! I am not able to do any of the methods. I do have access to another laptop computer with Windows 7 64 but I'm sure it would still be a problem since it is a different manufacturer altogether - Dell. And it's not Ultimate but Premium or something, I'd have to look.

Do I try and downgrade Windows 8? Is that the best way? It is an OEM install.

 

[Kari]

Hi Allowingtoo, welcome to the Seven Forums.

Just my opinion, other geeks might say something different: If Windows 8 is not for you, get a copy of Windows 7 and downgrade. Buy an external USB case for your old laptop's HDD, connect it to your new laptop and copy your personal stuff, then reinstall all your software.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hi Allowingtoo, welcome to the Seven Forums.

Just my opinion, other geeks might say something different: If Windows 8 is not for you, get a copy of Windows 7 and downgrade. Buy an external USB case for your old laptop's HDD, connect it to your new laptop and copy your personal stuff, then reinstall all your software.

As Kari say mate I would not be mucking around trying to downgrade. My brother in the UK has done a lot of playing around with 7, 8 and 10 and has finally come to his senses and gone back to 7

 

[GokAy]

You can try this one http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html

However, it might not work for UEFI, also considering it is an OEM from another vendor. Make sure you backup that drives contents as Kari has suggested and see if anything comes up.

If you are comfortable with a clean install, that would be the best approach.

 

[APK]

HP workstation Z230 - Z440 - Sysprep

Hi Kari,

Your article is an excellent article.

Last night did the sysprep from HP Workstation z230 to z440, moved the sysprep(ed) hdd to z440, but found a problem, sysprep hard disk is not accepting USB input (both keyboard and mouse) during the initial setup,(yes the USB keyboard and mouse is working with z230, and also working in the z440 bios). I am force to have a PS2 keyboard and mouse to complete the setup in z440 PC.

What could be wrong here?

Thanks in advance.

 

[A Guy]

Welcome to Seven Forums APK. I'm sure Kari will have some thoughts when he's on next. A Guy

 

[Kari]

Hi Kari,

Your article is an excellent article.

Last night did the sysprep from HP Workstation z230 to z440, moved the sysprep(ed) hdd to z440, but found a problem, sysprep hard disk is not accepting USB input (both keyboard and mouse) during the initial setup,(yes the USB keyboard and mouse is working with z230, and also working in the z440 bios). I am force to have a PS2 keyboard and mouse to complete the setup in z440 PC.

What could be wrong here?

Thanks in advance.

Hi APK, welcome to the Seven Forums.

I must tell you that I am not sure why that happens. The USB devices should work the default built-in Windows drivers even after the Sysprep / generalize command has removed all hardware drivers, as they do for instance when you do a clean install of Windows.

The fact that the PS2 keyboard works supports the theory that the issue is the USB drivers, not the keyboard and mouse drivers.

I will try to find more information about this. After the initial setup, is the transferred Windows working OK on the new computer, with the USB mouse and keyboard?

Kari

 

[APK]

Hi Kari,

Thanks for your kind reply,

Yes with PS2 keyboard and mouse PC is working, but wanted to have my USB working (none of the USB device detected). Manually uninstalled the existing USB drivers, then updated the manufacturer driver for USB (HP z440). It worked until I reboot, but when I rebooted, I got BSOD error, as recent hardware changes STOP :X0000007b

Tried several method of repairing, including safe mode and "Undo Recent Changes Using System Restore", Last known good, Repair windows - nothing helped. Luckily I have made a backup of entire hard disk of z230.

I am sure this is because of USB driver - I got stuck here.

I wanted to have this (sysprep) method to be working on my new PC due to my several installed games - especially - my kids like those.

I appreciate your further steps, in-order to do the exercise again on the weekend.

Thanks,

 

[Kari]

I am sorry but I am totally unable to find anything useful to help you. I tested this once again and I have no issues to get the USB mouse and keyboard to work.

A workaround that might work for you is to simple use the PS2 keyboard or on-screen keyboard when setting the PC up, USB mouse and keyboard being disconnected. When Windows then boots to desktop first time, install the chipset drivers, reboot and now install the USB drivers. Again reboot and connect the USB mouse and keyboard.

It should work and works in my tests.

You might also want to see if some third party software would be better for you. Here's an example: System restore to new hardware to upgrade your computer or migrate system

I will continue trying to find something.

 

[APK]

Thanks Kari,

Let me have a look at ''EaseUS Todo Backup" until I try the method(Sysprep) again in the weekend.

Rgds,
APK

 

[sndflea]

User Profiles

I am trying to move my HD from a custom built PC to a Dell. Followed Method 1 and everything worked fine. I can not, however, access by User Profiles. When I log in I get an error message stating they were not accessable and that a Temporary profile is being set up. During the reboot, I renamed to PC - could this be the cause of this error?

 

[Kari]

I am trying to move my HD from a custom built PC to a Dell. Followed Method 1 and everything worked fine. I can not, however, access by User Profiles. When I log in I get an error message stating they were not accessable and that a Temporary profile is being set up. During the reboot, I renamed to PC - could this be the cause of this error?

Hi Sndflea, welcome to the Seven Forums.

That is the reason for your issue. The long username, as the system sees it is always ComputerName\Username.

Let's say you old computer name is MyPC and your username Flea. This makes your username MyPC\Flea which cannot be found anymore. At the moment Windows sees itself as a new installation on a new computer, not as a transferred old existing Windows. If you renamed the PC as MyOtherPC, the system is now using and searching for usernames like MyOtherPC\Flea, seeing the username MyPC\Flea as belonging to a another computer.

The best thing to do now would be a complete reinstall. An alternative is to copy all personal data (Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music, Favorites, Saved games and so on) from the old user profile folders to a backup location, remove the old user folders, then re-create the user accounts on the new setup, sign in once to each of the new re-created user account and immediately sign out from them, and finally using the admin account you created during the first boot of that Dell copy the personal data back to new profiles from the backup.

For future readers of this, please keep in mind that when transferring Windows to a new computer you can only change the details and system information like the PC name after you have finished the process and booted to desktop. This should of course be logical.

Kari

 

[sndflea]

I am trying to move my HD from a custom built PC to a Dell. Followed Method 1 and everything worked fine. I can not, however, access by User Profiles. When I log in I get an error message stating they were not accessable and that a Temporary profile is being set up. During the reboot, I renamed to PC - could this be the cause of this error?

Hi Sndflea, welcome to the Seven Forums.

That is the reason for your issue. The long username, as the system sees it is always ComputerName\Username.

Let's say you old computer name is MyPC and your username Flea. This makes your username MyPC\Flea which cannot be found anymore. At the moment Windows sees itself as a new installation on a new computer, not as a transferred old existing Windows. If you renamed the PC as MyOtherPC, the system is now using and searching for usernames like MyOtherPC\Flea, seeing the username MyPC\Flea as belonging to a another computer.

The best thing to do now would be a complete reinstall. An alternative is to copy all personal data (Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music, Favorites, Saved games and so on) from the old user profile folders to a backup location, remove the old user folders, then re-create the user accounts on the new setup, sign in once to each of the new re-created user account and immediately sign out from them, and finally using the admin account you created during the first boot of that Dell copy the personal data back to new profiles from the backup.

For future readers of this, please keep in mind that when transferring Windows to a new computer you can only change the details and system information like the PC name after you have finished the process and booted to desktop. This should of course be logical.

Kari

I created an image before I ran sysprep. I reinstalled the image on the drive and put it back in my old PC. I can rerun the whole process later today and it will hopefully run correctly. I also noted a lot of missing drivers. Hopefully they will be on the Dell site.

Thank you for your help.

Sal

 

[Kari]

That's good, that is a good solution.

About the missing drivers, that's the whole point of this procedure!

The Sysprep /GENERALIZE command on the old setup completely removes all hardware related information, including the drivers for that hardware setup, in order to allow you to transfer the Windows to a completely different hardware. It would not work if the drivers for the old setup would still be there.

When Windows is then booted first time on the new hardware it runs the so called OOBE First Run boot, installing the default drivers. It's then up to you as the user to check which drivers might need to be manually reinstalled. Usually Windows 7 is quite good in finding the correct drivers by itself; before starting to install new drivers let the Windows Update run a few times until it finds no more updates, every time checking the otional updates, too.

Kari