Move win 7 to a new machine

You can not legally do that if the OS came preinstalled on the laptop.. it is known as OEM.


OEM = May be cheaper. But there are reasons for that. Very Limited Support. One License tied to One PC.
Whn that PC dies, the license dies with it. Can not be transferred (legally) to any other system.

Retail = Can be installed/Activated on one PC at a time. (Either 64bit or 32bit only one on one system at a time). If that PC dies, you go buy/build a new one. You do not have to purchase the OS again. you already have it and can install it on the new PC as long as you uninstall it from the old one. You may have to call MS to get activated again, but it will not be any problem to do so. You get MS Support.

So, you can use the Hard Drive, but you might need to purchase a new License for Win7.
Unless, the version of 7 you have is Retail (Upgrade or Full Version)

Ok,, I would still back up all data before attempting.....

you can attempt to swap it to the new system without doing a reinstall.
many people have done so without issue.

Drop drive in new system.
Boot into it and install drivers.
Can't be certain that there won't be conflicts or problems down the road, but.....

No, the drivers will be completely different. and you will have remnants of them left.

You can attempt to uninstall and remove the drivers before installing the drive into the new system.

That is why it really is highly recommended (regardless of others successes) to do a fresh install on a new system.
Everyone's mileage may vary.

No One can guarantee a smooth transition.
If they say they can, they are lying.

And, if you do not back up your data, do not be sad that it got lost.

There are 2 groups of people in the entire whole of all the world....
Those who have lost data
and those who Will lose data

There are no inbetweens.

You might get by with a couple of repair-installs, but it's a 50 / 50 chance

I have done one desktop HD that had win7 Ulitmate from an older Gigabyte MB to a newer Gigabyte MB. It did find all the needed drivers, etc using online Windows Update.

Hello woodgray, welcome to Seven Forums!


You will save yourself a lot of headaches in the long run if you do a new clean install to the HDD, I would suggest, after you have copied out or made back-ups of the data you need to save to external media, use Step One of this tutorial at the link below to do a wipe (secure erase) to the entire Hard Disk Drive, running this "clean all" then using the outline in Step Two #2 to create/format and mark Active a single 100GB partition using diskpart will get you the best possible space to do a clean install of Windows 7 to; you can always extend the Windows partition to include the remaining unallocated space on the HDD / SSD or create additional partitions after the installation completes if you choose.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Do a Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version


If you do a clean install you will have to reinstall all the programs/apps that you use, they integrate themselves into the Windows registry and are not moveable from one Windows installation to another so be sure to save the program activation keys where applicable.

This will do it.


Paragon Adaptive Restore