Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

7k452B · 31 Jan 2012

Hey everyone, I'm planning on building a new computer and was thinking about using Kensikos method first. If I did it that way, what drivers would I need to uninstall first besides the one mentioned below?

kensiko said:

It should work, the IDE/SATA driver is the most important driver to uninstall.

Sysprep should be used as a last resort.

Also, am If I am to use the method 1 stated in the tutorial, am I understanding correctly that I follow steps 1-5, proceed to 6, and then after the HD is in the new computer just start it up, nothing special to do like booting from a CD/DVD?

Kaktussoft · 31 Jan 2012

cyclometric said:

I used this tutorial a few months ago when I was trying out a new motherboard... Works very well.

But my situation now is that my mobo sizzled after my water cooling tubes came loose and it "rained" all over my board. Even after drying the system completely there are major issues. So I bought a new mobo last night and since I can't boot into my Windows installation, wondered if I might try booting with the drive attached to the new board, but in Safe Mode, and run Sysprep at that point. Now that I've written the idea, it seems unlikely that it would work but I don't know what else to try.

Thanks,

What is the error message?

Kari · 31 Jan 2012

7k452B said:

Am I understanding correctly that I follow steps 1-5, proceed to 6, and then after the HD is in the new computer just start it up, nothing special to do like booting from a CD/DVD?

Correct. Connect the HD to new computer and continue from step 7 booting from HD. No CD/DVD needed.

Kari

7k452B · 31 Jan 2012

Kari said:

7k452B said:

Am I understanding correctly that I follow steps 1-5, proceed to 6, and then after the HD is in the new computer just start it up, nothing special to do like booting from a CD/DVD?

Correct. Connect the HD to new computer and continue from step 7 booting from HD. No CD/DVD needed.

Kari

Thank you for the clarification Kari

BruceB · 01 Feb 2012

I had a Megabyte motherboard that I discovered would not take a graphics card, but worked fine with the onboard graphics (so, very slow). I bought a barebones system to replace it and just transferred all the HW (ram, disk, gpu, optical). Windows 7 would BSOD even after trying a ShadowProtect hardware independent restore. Figured I was out of luck and so did a clean Windows 7 install and started building my system back up. Decided I just didn't want to find, reinstall and tweak everything, so did a bit of research and found this thread and this brilliant writeup on sysprep and, so far, it has worked great.

What might be useful to some folks is that I used "Advanced Token Manager" (ATM) to simplify getting reactivated. Since I had activated Win7 on the barebones system already, I backed-up that activation using ATM, then restored my sysprep-ed image from the bad motherboard system onto the barebones system and the used ATM to restore the activation. I've use ATM to be able to move system around and to avoid reactivating (not needing sysprep, because I have fairly consistent hardware). It came in handy in this case, because I had an existing activation and could restore it rather than, once again, having to activate windows.

Kari · 01 Feb 2012

Thanks Bruce for the tip. A very practical way for taking care of reactivation. I have never used it but your experience might make me try.

Kari

iTRiP · 04 Feb 2012

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Kari · 04 Feb 2012

Sysprepping and generalizing XP is also possible, although it needs some more work. Read this fo more information: How to use the Sysprep tool to automate successful deployment of Windows XP

Kari

jason3211 · 06 Feb 2012

i myself am trying to swap a hard drive from a optiplex 775 into an optioplex gx520.....when i run the sysprep it gives me the Windows could not finish configuring the system error after sysprep /generalize.......lik ein this post

Windows could not finish configuring the system error after sysprep /generalize

i have tried every fix that is listed on that page....was wondering if you could give any more insight into the issue...thanks in advance for the advice...

ricknau · 16 Feb 2012

Well crap. Didn't go smooth for me. Want to move HDD to new machine. Did method one. Have no command prompt icon in the Start window therefore no option to choose "run as administrator". So just typed "command prompt" and got it up. Figured without admin privilege sysprep just wouldn't run.

Ran sysprep. Two minutes in I see "A fatal errror occured while trying to sysprep this machine". Great! Just what a blind follower wants to see. But sysprep keeps cranking. As I sit pondering WTF to do I scroll waaaaay down the page and see in Method 3... "this is not a big problem". So I become hopeful. It says to just stop the troublesome Windows Media Player Netwoking Service and run sysprep again. When I click "OK" on the the errror window it goes away, but so does the sysprep window that was still running! Well maybe that was supposed to happen. Lets hope so. So then, as instructed I type "net stop WMPNetworkSvc" at the command prompt. I kicks up "System error 5 has occured, Access is denied".

So now what do I do? Looking at my Windows log in screen I see I am set as "administrator" so I guess that didn't get turned off. I'm friggin lost and afraid to do anything. If I turn off my machine what will happen when I turn it back on?

Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

help pls