Solved Can I backup my pc & restore it on my laptop?

[flashpoint]

Hi there
Currently I have a desktop pc with two drive partitions and my windows and programs are installed on drive C, I just wondered that can I use windows backup function to create a backup of this drive, as I want and love all my programs, settings, windows updates etc there, and then restore it on my laptop! so my laptop will be accurately like my pc programs and settings! if it's not possible do you have any better option for me? it's so hard and will take much time from me to do these manually from scratch!
thx and sorry for my english.

 

[fireberd]

The short answer is NO. Programs must be installed using the programs installation procedure. You can't copy programs.

 

[flashpoint]

The short answer is NO. Programs must be installed using the programs installation procedure. You can't copy programs.

thx for reply, but I know that programs can't be copied, but windows restore and backup function, as described in it's manual notes, let user to backup all it's data including programs and registry to be restored later, in other mean it's a drive image, I just want to know that is that possible to use a system back up for restoring on other systems which has different hardware like a laptop?

 

[fireberd]

That is to restore to the original OS, not to a different PC. The original OS has the installation setup and backing up a program and reinstalling it to the original installation is the intent of the backup/restore.

If you backup from one OS (PC) and restore that backup to different PC the installation information is missing and thus the program(s) will not work or work correctly.

There is also the legality of installing a program in more than one PC. If the program is an "OEM" program it is only legally licensed for use on the system it was originally installed on. An example would be an OEM version of MS Office, or Windows.

 

[SIW2]

Yes you can make an image and restore to a different machine.

Windows system image program is very fiddly to try and do that.

I would use AOMEI Backupper (free version will be ok ) - it can restore an aomei image to different hardware. That means all the drivers in the image will be available on the new hardware.

Free Download AOMEI Backupper Standard: Windows Backup & Cloning Software

Local Download Standard version (free)





The MS license key is a different thing.

If you are in the Uk, or now even in the EU, you can transfer a license, but as it will almost certainly be a one machine license, you can't have it on both machines.

Short answer, you need a win 7 license for the laptop.

You may already have one - but it needs to be the same Edition (Home Premium, Pro, etc ).

If you want to buy a win 7 license, Pro can be had for a very reasonable $45, Home Prem was $40 last time I looked.

 

[flashpoint]

Yes you can make an image and restore to a different machine.

Windows system image program is very fiddly to try and do that.

I would use AOMEI Backupper (free version will be ok ) - it can restore an aomei image to different hardware. That means all the drivers in the image will be available on the new hardware.

Free Download AOMEI Backupper Standard: Windows Backup & Cloning Software

Local Download Standard version (free)





The MS license key is a different thing.

If you are in the Uk, or now even in the EU, you can transfer a license, but as it will almost certainly be a one machine license, you can't have it on both machines.

Short answer, you need a win 7 license for the laptop.

You may already have one - but it needs to be the same Edition (Home Premium, Pro, etc ).

If you want to buy a win 7 license, Pro can be had for a very reasonable $45, Home Prem was $40 last time I looked.

Thanks for introducing that software I'll try that, but I just wondered what will happen for drivers? for example my pc has an amd video card and if I use that sofware to create an image of my pc and restore it on my laptop which hasn't an amd card, so what will be occur? may this cause a failure?

-------------------------UPDATE----------------------

nevermind I found my answer in their instructions:

Some drivers, such as video/sound card drivers, NIC drivers, display driver etc, are not installed by AOMEI Universal Restore, as they doesn’t affect system startup and can be installed manually in Windows after the successful restore.

 

[SIW2]

Doubt it. The restored windows will just try and use whatever graphics it has. Windows update will offer to download appropriate graphics driver for the laptop.Though you can probably also find machine specific drivers at the laptop manufacturer website.

 

[flashpoint]

Doubt it. The restored windows will just try and use whatever graphics it has. Windows update will offer to download appropriate graphics driver for the laptop.Though you can probably also find machine specific drivers at the laptop manufacturer website.

Ok, thank you so much you showed me what exactly I needed

 

[AddRAM]

As long as you have an activation key on the COA of the laptop, and the laptop and the desktop use the same version of Windows 7, it should work, in theory. I would then just use the key on the laptop COA to activate windows so it is all nice and legal.

There`s always a good chance you will have to run startup repair on the laptop to get it booting Windows 7.

 

[Layback Bear]

The motherboard being different I seriously doubt if the desktop will activate with a laptop OEM COA and motherboard bios, legally.

 

[AddRAM]

No, he`s taking an image from the desktop and putting it on the laptop.

The COA key has nothing to do with the bios, the COA key on the laptop will work to activate the image brought over from the desktop.

The BIOS is only brought into the picture when you use a BRANDED oem install disc, for automatic activation.

He just can not use windows native imaging to do it, windows native imaging only works on the same machine restoring to the same hard dirve, that`s what it`s designed for.

His major obstacle will be whether or not the image will boot on the laptop.

 

[GokAy]

I wonder if this would work:

- you have 2 licences for the same windows version
- your programs have, 3 pc licences or freeware etc
- run sysprep to strip the installation from drivers and unique id's
- image/clone with 3rd party software

I have used this method with dissimilar custom PCs before but they weren't as packed with software as a regular pc would have. You need to run a mini setup at 1st boot and reinstall drivers though.