Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

I have not seen anything that exactly helps me. I am replacing a dead motherboard and my old CPU but keeping all other equipment. I need to know if this should work as both boards are intel based. The old board is no longer made so I am updating with one using Z68 chipset. I use Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and it is OEM...bought it from tiger direct when I upgraded from Vista. I do not want to lose any info on my hard drive and have no other pc to use. My husband uses Macs as he does graphic design. Should this change over work? If there is no way to make it work I am done with Microsoft. I have had so many issues over the years and very little help from them. I am hoping someone in these forums can give me some good suggestions. I enjoy being able to build my own pcs to my own specs. I am moving from a DP45SG extreme board with Intel Core 2 Quad CPU to Asus P8Z68V Pro and Intel Core i5-2500 processor. ( I have a Seagate Barracuda 1TB hard drive (sata), 2 Sony sata DVD burners, Coolmax 950w power supply, Corsair memory which I am upgrading, EVGA GeForce 9800 GT superclocked video card, and soundblaster audio card.)

Thank you. I will try this and post back.

My wife has bought a new Dell XPS 8300 with Windows 7 Premium installed. She wishes to move all her programs and files from her old HP Pavilion machine with Windows 7 Professional installed to the new Dell machine. Is this possible with sysprep or will she have to use Windows easy transfer or similar program and reinstall her applications? I beleive from what I have read that sysprep appears to work only if the new machine does not contain an OS.

Thanks

Windows 7 Professional has a valid license (not OEM)?
Dell XPS 8300 and old HP Pavilion are both desktops? or laptops?[/QUOTE]

Both Dell XPS 8300 and HP Pavilion are desktops. Windows 7 Professional is a valid licensed update from Microsoft. The original OS was the HP OEM Windows 7 Premium that was installed on the computer when she bought it.

Sorry for the delay in replying we were in the process of doing a backup of her HP hard drive. It took over 10 hours as our external backup drive is only USB 2.0. We will be buying a new external backup drive with esata port for the Dell.

Hi, I have a few questions concerning SysPrep. I'm considering buying a new laptop and have come between two laptops, one with integrated graphics (not my primary choice) and a real graphics card (primary choice) however obviously this computer is more expensive and so to cut back on the price, I looked into seeing if I could transfer my entire computer over to the new one, without purchasing Win7 again. In place of the 90 dollar windows 7, I could get around a 40 dollar external hard drive and transfer the boot disc to that computer, right? I need to make sure of this before I waste my money on this computer as I am merely trying to save myself some money.

TL;DR/Summary: Is it possible for me to use an external hard drive to save a boot disc or some sort of memory that contains all my information from my currently laptop to a completely formatted hard drive only laptop (one with no operating system) using SysPrep or some other method?

Awesome Tutorial man!! Keep up de GREAT Work!!!!