Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

Hi, I apologize if this question has been answered already, so here goes. I am replacing my motherboard, but nothing else, and would like to keep my Win 7 installation. Fortunately, my Win7 license is a retail version, so at least I will be able to activate after performing the sysprep on my HD. But I am concerned about losing all of my settings, though, so I was wondering if it is a good idea to run Easy Transfer before the sysprep, just to preserve my user account settings and personalization and such that is lost during sysprep. Obviously I wouldn't include libraries, and large files, just want to save the hassle of recreating my very organized start menu, and such.

Thanks,

Kari said:

At least Easy Transfer does not harm your computer in any way, it is 100% safe. I find it quite a good idea, to generalize the image and let Easy Transfer take care of the personalized stuff.

Please come back and tell how it went!

Kari

Great, thanks. Before I spend much time looking around for issues with sysprep, are there any I should be aware of? I'm actually not that concerned about a total failure, because I could just do a clean install if necessary. All my data files are on secondary drives, and fully backed up with Crash Plan, too, and as a last resort, I like to save a text file listing of my Program Files folders.

Thanks,

I was in the process of considering building a new p.c. and found this article to be very interesting.
I first tried method one on a practice run on existing p.c.'s and all appeared to go well apart from the issues that were explained.

I built my new p.c. and the day of reckoning beckoned, but somebody suggested to me that as my new build had an Asus board, it was likely to boot up without any problems. I found that suggestion a little suspicious. In the end the suggestion turned out to be very much true and everything booted up, even without pre-loading any other drivers onto my existing S.S.D.
So I never required to use any of the methods in this guideline :)

One other small tip that may be useful, if it has not already been suggested, regarding losing all the desktop icons (shortcuts etc). This can be helped if you move them all onto a separate folder before doing a system prep. They can then be recovered once everything is back to near normal and then they only require placing back to roughly where you had them before on your desktop.

I've only really posted to say thanks for an excellent article. It is appreciated.

I've cloned systems about 20 times and never had any problems!
Be sure to select "Standard VGA driver" before cloning (not really necessary). Also "Standard IDE" and "Standard SATA" before cloning. Be sure to delete non-standard IDE and SATA drivers.
After cloning, remove drivers not needed.

Why SYSPREP??

HELP!

I got the fatal error message. I did what the tutorial said and disabled the Windows Media process in command prompt, but it didn't work.

If I can't get it to work, can I just fresh install Windows 7 OEM with the discs that Acer told me to burn when I first bought the computer and installed the OS and then extend my activation to 120 days and have it work fine? Keep in mind I am dual booting 7 and 8 dev preview.