[windows (10)] moving setup to a new computer?

[migles]

so, my computer reached a point i need a new one
the catch is this thing has ddr2, socket 775 (dual core 2 duo)

Spoiler: skipable story

the GPU died and i was thinking getting a 750ti or a more recent one, i didn't thought about which GPU yet.. but this will be chosen later
however this thing has pci express version 2.0, getting a new GPU for this thing will be a waste... so yey, viva la robolution

so, i will most likely build a new pc from scratch, i want an i5, ddr4 etc...

i don't want to install windows again, and wish to savage my current HDD..
i have loads of stuff here and it's a pain to install it again on a new computer and move everything..
in the old XP days, moving the HDD to a new entire computer would cause it crash at boot..
and most likely license issues
so, i guess that's still true nowadays, i can't simply move the hdd from one pc to the other without windows bitching. is there something i can do about that?
we are in the age of discartable electronics. there must be an easy way to move everything to a new pc.

 

[Joom]

All you'd be able to safely move would be your personal files and everything in %appdata%\Roaming. It's best that you reinstall software so you avoid registry and permissions issues.

 

[Futurdreamz]

I've done it. I've swapped drives between Intel and AMD systems. It'll just install the necessary drivers on first startup. I don't know if your Windows 10 license will be retained though, if the system already has a license it should reactivate automagically, otherwise you'll need a key for the same version.

You'll have all the crap from the old system though, so it's best to before you swap go through Programs and Features and remove everything specific to the old hardware.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

IIRC, the license is tied to hardware hash on the mobo, so it's very possible you'll need to re-activate your install when you switch. If you got an OEM license, you won't be able to transfer it to a new PC period, you'd have to either buy a new license or just use one of the many activators. If it's just a retail license, then it can be de-activated on the old PC and reactivated on another. Google how to check what kind of license you have, IIRC it's just slmgr.vbs -dli in cmd prompt but I'm not 100% certain.


As for transferring the HDD, Windows 8+ is more forgiving with major hardware changes like motherboard swaps, so when you put the old HDD in the new PC it should boot just fine and then acquire missing drivers automatically (though sometimes you might have to hunt down a driver or two that Windows can't find). However, I would recommend simply doing a reinstall anyways, especially if you're making such a significant jump in hardware. It's cleaner, there's fewer headaches, you won't experience any conflicting driver issues...I mean, it takes like 15-20 minutes tops to install Windows these days, and you can always just accumulate installers for your favorite programs before you transfer/backup any games you might want to play. At most you'd spend an hour or two getting things setup, which is probably better than spending time figuring out why things randomly crash for seemingly no reason.

 

[migles]

IIRC, the license is tied to hardware hash on the mobo, so it's very possible you'll need to re-activate your install when you switch. If you got an OEM license, you won't be able to transfer it to a new PC period, you'd have to either buy a new license or just use one of the many activators. If it's just a retail license, then it can be de-activated on the old PC and reactivated on another. Google how to check what kind of license you have, IIRC it's just slmgr.vbs -dli in cmd prompt but I'm not 100% certain.


As for transferring the HDD, Windows 8+ is more forgiving with major hardware changes like motherboard swaps, so when you put the old HDD in the new PC it should boot just fine and then acquire missing drivers automatically (though sometimes you might have to hunt down a driver or two that Windows can't find). However, I would recommend simply doing a reinstall anyways, especially if you're making such a significant jump in hardware. It's cleaner, there's fewer headaches, you won't experience any conflicting driver issues...I mean, it takes like 15-20 minutes tops to install Windows these days, and you can always just accumulate installers for your favorite programs before you transfer/backup any games you might want to play. At most you'd spend an hour or two getting things setup, which is probably better than spending time figuring out why things randomly crash for seemingly no reason.

My problem is actually programs settings and whatnot.. It will be an arse to configure everything all over again
And there are several stuff I even forget how I make it work or stuff I forgot. (for example old games that hate new OS, game patches mods..) old programs that require tweaks etc..
Personal files can be easily moved to folders, it gonna take half an hour or so..

Anyway, you said license is hashed from the mobo. Is this true on both uefi and non uefi systems? My computer does not have uefi, there are no secure keys neither anything

(I still don't understand about uefi or Efi stuff)

 

[Futurdreamz]

I think the hash doesn't care if your system is MBR or GPT. As long as it's hardware is idunno 95% identical it'll reactivate. I think it pulls the serial numbers from the individual components.

I'm pretty much certain it will work. Windows 10 will disable any unusable drivers and you can install the wanted ones. Again, I have swapped hard drives between two identical laptops and both systems were full stable before and after installing the new drivers.

Activation is more unknown. Microsoft can help, but you may have to be prepared to buy a valid license at full price.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

It's true for both legacy and UEFI BIOS, it wouldn't care if you were using some futuristic magic BIOS method, it'd still pull them from the hardware. I don't believe it'd be pulled from serial numbers itself, as you can replace the motherboard with the same exact model and it'd still act as if it were activated so it's likely just based on having the exact same hardware.

But, as I mentioned, it depends on whether your license is an OEM license or a retail license. OEM can't be activated on different hardware, while Retail licenses can. So double check that to be sure.

 

[RandomUser]

Back then when I wanted to create a new RAMDisk image to boot physically in RAM, I used VMWare to install and prep the os, and when booting to physical machine install all necessary drivers and manually remove all what is called "Phantom drivers" AKA VMWare drivers, by creating a new entry in the Environment variable:

devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices and give it a value of 1
Or you can go to this registry location
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment
from there create a new DWORD value of devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices and again value of 1 (requires reboot though).

Then you can enable show hidden devices in device manager, and remove all the offending drivers. This is essentially the same thing as taking the HDD from one computer to another. However I have a much cleaner approach on creating new RAMDisk images and does not require the above steps, as only the host or physical machine drivers are installed.
It is generally recommended to reinstall Windows from a clean slate on a different computers for reasons mentioned above.