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by WJaekel on Sun Jan 19, 2020 2:00 am
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Since the support of win7 has ended, I yesterday bought a new consumer laptop which has win 10 Home pre-installed. It's not intended for photo editing or gaming but primarily just for daily work and internet. My more than 10 years old notebook seemed too outdated for upgrading the OS to win10, but still does the jobs pretty good on win7 home (32bit). However, it obviously is too risky to stay with win7 for internet use now - at least in the long run.

Nevertheless, I want to migrate my present win7 partition including programs from the old laptop to the new one for a parallel installation with win 10, alternatively accessible via the boot menu. Furthermore, I plan to replace the win 10 Home OS there with the Pro version for good reasons. Obviously that works by replacing the license key with a pro key which I purchased some time ago. Optionally, I also think of reformatting the SSD in the new laptop and reinstall win10 pro from the scratch, - if there's bloatware on the new laptop, at least. I have not yet checked it. The new machine has a conventional 1 TB HD in addition to the 512 GB SSD, btw. So far the pre-information.

In order to migrate win 7 to the new laptop, I cloned it to an external USB drive with Macrium Reflect last night. But stupid enough, I didn't think about the fact that I cannot simply restore this OS on the new system by attaching the drive to the laptop because Windows cannot boot from an external USB drive. As Macrium points out in the Help menu, you'd have to remove the physical disk from the USB caddy and attach it to the Motherboard SATA port to run the restore. That's not possible here given the SSD in the new laptop and it wouldn't make sens either, I think.

So I'm pretty much in a dead end street now since the cloning evidentally was an useless 6 hours operation- apart from the benefit of having another backup of my old laptop now, of course. Now I'm struggling to figure out the procedure for the win7 migration. So far, I wonder if one of the following considerations and options would work:

1) Is it possible to create a bootable USB- stick for win7 to replace the win10 installation if needed - in order to access the clone on the USB-HD for restoring it on the new notebook ? In the next step a second partition for win 10 would be needed, of course
Or, could I add the boot drivers to the external USB-drive containing the clone ? Finally, I'm not too familiar with all the possibilities of Macrium but the program seems to offer a Rescue Media Builder in their "other tasks" menu, too. I don't know if that helps in any way but I doubt.

2) Are there other recommendable tools or programs to transfer a win7 partition to a new machine without hazzle ? Does anybody know or has used PCMover , https://web.laplink.com/product/pcmover ... nal/#tabs2  ? They promise to add an old system to the new one without deleting anything. I also came across Minitools, https://www.minitool.com/backup/bootable.html. Any other suggestions ?

3) Could I try to replace the HD in the new laptop by a 2,5 " drive containing the clone and thus providing the physical attachment of the drive to the MB as pointed out by Macrium and needed to restore the system from a non bootable external USB drive  ? I think I would need to change the boot sequence in the BIOS first, if possible.  Of course, in the second step I would need to copy/ clone the win7 OS from the internally attached HD back to the primary SSD, replace the HD by the orginal one afterwards and change the Boot sequence again. Pretty cumbersome and complicated, I think

5) I also was thinking of running win7 in a virtual enviroment of win 10. But that probably wouldn't solve the problem because I need to transfer/install win 7 anyway. I also don't know if the BIOS and CPU of the new laptop support VM.

4) Last option maybe is to install win7 pro or home on the new laptop from the scratch and reinstall all the programs and data of the old enviroment again. That's what I was trying to circumnavigate, though. However, I don't know if Microsoft still offers all the past win 7 updates after the end of support. I also would have to create a bootable USB-stick again from the installation DVDs because the new machine has no optical drive anymore.


Sorry for this pretty long text not primarily related to photography and demanding for a non-native English speaker ;-) Nevertheless, I hope I could explain the intention and problems. I would very much appreciate the experiences and suggestions how to proceed for migrating the win7 system. Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Wolfgang
 

by E.J. Peiker on Sun Jan 19, 2020 8:11 am
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Your best bet for smooth sailing on the new computer is to reinstall all programs on the new computer, you can't just migrate them due to all of the dynamic link libraries, registry keys, and all of the things a program puts in a lot of different places on your computer, etc. Then you can simply copy the data files over to the new computer. Cloning of a system drive is no benefit in the scenario where you are changing computers plus changing OS simultaneously.
 

by signgrap on Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:10 am
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I can second E.J.'s recommendation. When I upgraded my win 7 computer to win 10 I wish I had done a clean install instead of upgrading the computer OS. I'm not talking about migrating to a new computer but upgrading the same computer with a new OS. Having built the computer originally, knowing there was no crapware, I thought all the little annoyances that had developed over the years would disappear when I did the upgrade BUT some of them didn't. Lesson learned I will never upgrade an old OS to a new OS again - I'll always do a clean install instead. I realize that you have no other option you must do a clean install but thought my experience would make the process a bit more palatable.
It would be my opinion to upgrade to Win Pro before installing any other software. First step would be to get rid of ALL crapware making sure that the only software left on the computer are apps you intend to use. Install and run Ccleaner to make sure that all fragments of deleted software are totally gone from the Registry. Second, once the computer is as clean as you can make it, upgrade the OS to Win Pro. Then install your apps. E.J. please correct me if I'm off base on any of this as you know this stuff much better than I do.
Dick Ludwig
 

by E.J. Peiker on Sun Jan 19, 2020 12:40 pm
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Agree Dick and your comments are just for upgrading an existing system which is easy compared to going to a new system.  you simply can not do what Wolfgang wants to do.  You can not install apps on a new computer from a clone made on a different computer with a different OS.
 

by WJaekel on Sun Jan 19, 2020 5:10 pm
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E.J. and Dick, thank you very much for your helpful comments. I think I will follow your advice and give up the plan to transfer my win7 partition from the old laptop to the new win 10 machine. Just to clarify, though, I didn't intend to run the apps of my old win7 installation with win10 but was hoping to restore the clone into a separate partition and optionally boot win7 from there. Over the years, I have several programs and applications on my old notebook which very likely aren't compatible with win 10. But as you say, it probably won't work to transfer them into a win7 partition because of the different hardware - though there are several programs (Laplink's PCMover, Minitools etc) claiming to circumnavigate or to fix possible problems of a migration. That said, I now came to the conclusion that a clean install of win7 and programs in a separate partition of the new notebook makes no sens either because I'd be exposed to the same security risks as with my current win7 laptop and thus would have no benefit of running them on the new machine, apart from a bit of performance boost, maybe. So if I urgently need some applications of my win7 installation there's evidentally no choice but to run them on the old machine in the end and hoping not to be hacked by then.

The only option I maybe could try is to convert the win7 installation from my old laptop into a virtual machine and run that in a sandbox on the new win10 laptop - provided VM (i.e. VMPlayer) is supported by the BIOS there. But I will go for the win10 installation on the new notebook for the daily work and internet use. Of course, I will either convert the win10 Home Pre-installation into win10 pro or - even better - rebuild win10 pro from the scratch for the reasons Dick pointed out.

For my main desktop machine presently still running with win7 Ultimate, the situation is different though. I was considering to upgrade it to win10 pro as Dick did in the past, too. But I have a lot of external USB- and LAN-connections such as several NAS, older printers, old WHS for backups, Raid systems etc and also specific apps for photo work. I really don't trust into a flawless transition to win10 there, no matter that I could backup the system prior to an upgrade attempt, of course. A clean win 10 installation wouldn't help to avoid probable incompatibilities of older apps or lack of drivers. And a resource-eating VM installation of win7 makes no sens for my photo editing either. So I will keep my win7 Ultimate system as long as possible there and install win10 pro into a separate partition for a slow transition, maybe needed for newer programs and upgraded drives in the future. In the end, I cannot avoid all risks by now if I still work with the win7 system there though I rarely use the internet on my desktop machine in contrary to the laptop discussed above. But I see no real alternative and had wished, that MS had not ended the support for all the working systems millions of users still are running.

Wolfgang
 

by E.J. Peiker on Sun Jan 19, 2020 5:30 pm
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I did not misunderstand, you simply can not restore apps from one OS to another using a clone. A clone is just that, a clone, it is not an installation package. To properly install any app to any version of Windows you must run that package's installer. Even the VM thing is a pain. Just bite the bullet, take a day and install everything new. It's the only way you are going to be problem free. Make sure that anything that uses software authorization, like Photoshop, is deauthorized first on the old machine so that you don't burn up authorizations for no reason. All of your RAID stuff and data storage stuff will be no problem. There is very little that is incompatible with Win 10. Virtually anything that ran in Win 7 will run in Win 10 with the exception of some very old stuff designed to be run on XP only or earlier. Win 7 could usually still run those but Win 10 might not. About the only thin I have found to not be fully compatible with Win 10 is Frontpage 2003 and even that works except for the FTP upload module in it. Your NAS, etc will work exactly as it did in Win 10, it's network attached so as long as you connect to the network, there will be no difference. In all honesty, I think you are making this into a bigger problem than it is. Just go for it and solve little problems if you even run into any. I guarantee you will hate yourself and start over at some point if you do anything else.
 

by DChan on Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:41 pm
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Sorry man. The world will not stay and wait for you. It's just the way it is.
 

by signgrap on Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:05 pm
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The only thing that I'd add to E.J.'s comments, which I totally agree with, is that sometimes you have problems with older peripherals that need Win 10 drivers and none are available. But if the peripheral is widely installed there probably is a workaround available on the internet. I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000 scanner that didn't have 64 bit drivers available for win 7 but I found a workaround on https://www.sevenforums.com/. This workaround still works for win 10. And like E.J. said if the app worked in win 7 it works in 10.
Dick Ludwig
 

by WJaekel on Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:25 am
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signgrap wrote:The only thing that I'd add to E.J.'s comments, which I totally agree with, is that sometimes you have problems with older peripherals that need Win 10 drivers and none are available.  But if the peripheral is widely installed there probably is a workaround available on the internet.  I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000 scanner that didn't have 64 bit drivers available for win 7 but I found a workaround on https://www.sevenforums.com/.  This workaround still works for win 10.  And like E.J. said if the app worked in win 7 it works in 10.
I agree and that's why I have been hesitant to upgrade with regard to my periphals currently working on my win7 Ultimate PC, such as the old HP data vault data server still used for backup and storage that needs WHS Software and older drivers to access. I also have a Nikon Coolscan LS 4000 ED by myself that requires a Firewire interface. I haven't used it for a long period. But it's still connected to my even older XP machine.

Wolfgang
 

by WJaekel on Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:31 am
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DChan wrote:Sorry man. The world will not stay and wait for you. It's just the way it is.
Thank you for your helpful comment ;-) Agreed, it's just the question how useful a proclaimed progress is and if you have to jump on every train in the end (see Adobe)
 

by WJaekel on Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:47 am
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E.J. Peiker wrote:I did not misunderstand, you simply can not restore apps from one OS to another using a clone.  A clone is just that, a clone, it is not an installation package.  To properly install any app to any version of Windows you must run that package's installer.  Even the VM thing is a pain.  Just bite the bullet, take a day and install everything new.  It's the only way you are going to be problem free.  Make sure that anything that uses software authorization, like Photoshop, is deauthorized first on the old machine so that you don't burn up authorizations for no reason.  All of your RAID stuff and data storage stuff will be no problem.  There is very little that is incompatible with Win 10.  Virtually anything that ran in Win 7 will run in Win 10 with the exception of some very old stuff designed to be run on XP only or earlier.  Win 7 could usually still run those but Win 10 might not.  About the only thin I have found to not be fully compatible with Win 10 is Frontpage 2003 and even that works except for the FTP upload module in it.  Your NAS, etc will work exactly as it did in Win 10, it's network attached so as long as you connect to the network, there will be no difference.  In all honesty, I think you are making this into a bigger problem than it is.  Just go for it and solve little problems if you even run into any.  I guarantee you will hate yourself and start over at some point if you do anything else.
Thank you very much again for your expertise and encouragement. I really appreciate it. You certainly are right that I maybe have been too concerned to screw up my flawlessly working systems - especially my desktop machine used for photo editing. But I think I will go the route you suggested and in fact "bite the bullet". I'm no first-rate PC specialist but I hope that I'm able to solve the problems if they occur.

Wolfgang
 

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