Windows 7: Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

crashnbuen · 20 Jun 2015

Quote: Originally Posted by 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.

Quote: Originally Posted by APK

Thanks Kari,

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

Rgds,
APK

Do share your experiences on this front once you have tried it.

attphone10258 · 23 Jun 2015

Need a direct download section, people done fukked up the internet way to bad to download legit anything, especially a direct iso download, should be super simple and fast to get an iso, i am in a library that has no security so it makes it very difficult, they dont even have HOSTS protection, so its quite interesting., any and all help would be greatly appreciated.thanks much!

:)
!

Way2Cool · 18 Jul 2015

Kari and other Contributors;

I registered here with the sole purpose to say thank you for taking the time to create this tutorial, and patiently respond to all the needs of nearly 1000 posts thereafter !!
My situation was VERY difficult to deal with, I eventually found a cure after reading through these (nearly) 1000 posts.. but it was the most frustrating time in my recent life :)

My many attempts at SYSPREP failed, leaving my desired user profile un-usable. The frustrating part waswith every attempt I was left locked out of all profiles.

I'm going to go out on a limb and blame that on my profile hive, this is a company laptop with no less than four other ADMIN accounts in addition to my own.

The only method that finally worked for me was to nullify (disable) or change every driver on the cloned HDD to generic drivers. I had to be very meticulous to not miss ANY since the clone was moving from a more powerful (three years newer) laptop with more modern hardware etc., to a less powerful and older laptop with older hardware.

Even the BIOS on the older machine was a pain to deal with but that was the ultimate key, getting the recipient BIOS to recognize the cloned HDD.

Once that was done my personal Admin User Profile was intact and first to come up, all drivers began changing to match the old laptop.. several re-boots later you cant tell the difference between the source and recipient laptops.. they are identical in every way!

HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL INVOLVED IN THIS TUTORIAL !!
AND SPECIAL THANKS TO KARI !!

Steven

A Guy · 19 Jul 2015

Welcome to Seven Forums Steven. Yes, Kari is a keeper

Currently working his magic at Windows 10 Forums as well

A Guy

Kari · 19 Jul 2015

Hi Way2Cool, welcome to the Seven Forums.

Feedback like yours is always nice to read. Thank you :)

Kari

crashnbuen · 21 Jul 2015

Quote: Originally Posted by Way2Cool

Kari and other Contributors;

I registered here with the sole purpose to say thank you for taking the time to create this tutorial, and patiently respond to all the needs of nearly 1000 posts thereafter !!
My situation was VERY difficult to deal with, I eventually found a cure after reading through these (nearly) 1000 posts.. but it was the most frustrating time in my recent life :)

My many attempts at SYSPREP failed, leaving my desired user profile un-usable. The frustrating part waswith every attempt I was left locked out of all profiles.

I'm going to go out on a limb and blame that on my profile hive, this is a company laptop with no less than four other ADMIN accounts in addition to my own.

The only method that finally worked for me was to nullify (disable) or change every driver on the cloned HDD to generic drivers. I had to be very meticulous to not miss ANY since the clone was moving from a more powerful (three years newer) laptop with more modern hardware etc., to a less powerful and older laptop with older hardware.

Even the BIOS on the older machine was a pain to deal with but that was the ultimate key, getting the recipient BIOS to recognize the cloned HDD.

Once that was done my personal Admin User Profile was intact and first to come up, all drivers began changing to match the old laptop.. several re-boots later you cant tell the difference between the source and recipient laptops.. they are identical in every way!

HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL INVOLVED IN THIS TUTORIAL !!
AND SPECIAL THANKS TO KARI !!

Steven

Thanks for posting. Steven, I am currently going through this as well, It'd be great if you could detail out a bit more on how/ what you were doing with the drivers.

In my case, I've un-installed most Hardware / OEM drivers (but they seem to hide places in the OS).
I've been making Sys Restore snapshots between each driver uninstall.
Did you go through Device Mgr and uninstall devices there (they come back) or did you DISABLE them?

Please do share specifics of the 'meticulous' ness. I am being meticulous as well, I just want to ensure I dont miss anything and LEARN something from your APPROACH & MANUAL METHODS, that I may be missing.

crashnbuen · 21 Jul 2015

Quote: Originally Posted by kenewin7

Hi all

I am posting this as a possible solution only, based on the myriad hardware\software configurations which could influence the outcome of a SYSPREP exercise:

I helped a friend upgrade his buggy mainboard\CPU. The old and new mainboards both had Intel chipsets so I hoped we might avoid SYSPREP,,,. Alas, it was not to be, so after tripping over the WMPNETWK.EXE problem, we finally got an OOBE + Generalize SYSPREP to run through to completion.

We placed the prepped hard-drive into the rebuilt system and.... it halted with the dreaded 'Windows could not finish customizing your machine' error, followed by 'Will continue after restart'.

So - in the pursuit of insanity we re-booted 3 times and got the same gut-wrenching result.

We then tried Safe Mode only to be informed that this process cannot be done in Safe Mode.

In total desperation, I re-booted the machine and kept the LEFT-SHIFT key depressed.

I remember this from Windows 95 days of preventing startup items from interfering with problematic boot issues,,, and would you believe it - IT ACTUALLY WORKED!

The PC is now up and running perfectly after updating drivers.

I cannot guarantee that this will work for everyone experiencing these startup errors, but what have you got to lose by trying? After all the alternative is several hours of format\reloading Windows7 + apps + everything else....

Sysprep failed, Windows 7 Ult. 64 bit, new CPU+MB

Found this here..

Is this a valid "key press" even for Windows 8/ 8.x? I remember using 'Esc' Key way back in the XP/2000 or 98 days to prevent lot of stuff from starting up (during normal startup, after fixing things in safe modes).

What would be the equivalent for Windows 8?

crashnbuen · 24 Jul 2015

I finally got a successful run on Win 8.1. Some additional changes to Win 7 thingy.

Windows 8.1 Sysprep .. Reset all my Chrome Cookies and Passwords.. and Outlook + Windows Live Mail passwords. Thankfully, I can copy these files from my backup Image Partition :)

Thanks Kari for this thread. Kudos to you. This time I went through the 70/80 pages before I started.

With all due respect and love for you.. and the people who posted the solutions in here.. I think we need to UPDATE the first page with ISSUES and RESOLUTIONS that people have encountered in these pages.

It is way too much pain to sort through and read through for anyone - especially newbies who dont have the patience or energy to go through 100 pages when One page of collected things would do the job.

Its very easy to Sysprep.exe / /.. but dealing with
- UN-Installing funky OEM drivers / So many ways to find and disable and then remove them..
- Removing Win 8 Apps
- Running Sysprep on Upgraded Windows (yes.. simple registry stuff).
- Restarting after Sysprep!!!..
.. The issues of rebooting, Numerous endless re booting, not able to get to Safe Mode, various ways to get to Safe Mode.. Boot Repairs (if needed) and other Registry Hacks while Rebooting (I didn't need this one, but its good to know before one starts).

It wouldn't take a lot as you know the main hacks & ways out already.

PS:
I kept doing Multi Quote on those posts. I figured I'd REPLY to them with QUOTE at the end and then COPY all of them out into a Word Doc to organize. But the multi quote did not survive 80+ pages :)

AnnaPC · 31 Aug 2015

Hello!
I used sysprep to tranfer windows from one HDD to another and have one question.
Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer-image.png

I want to use my folder named "Anna", not "Anna-Temp PC". How can i do it? Thanks.
In control panel its only 2 users - Anna and Guest. If I select Anna - I select folder "anna-temp pc"

Kari · 31 Aug 2015

Hi Anna, welcome to the Seven Forums.

See the tutorial, Method One, steps 10 to 13. Assuming that Anna was your existing user account before replacing the HDD, then the Anna.TEMP-PC should be the new account. IF you sign out from that account, can you see the old account Anna in login screen?