Defective 8770w sent for exchange can I restore win8 made by acronis on new one?

Tried to squeeze the question in the subject! here is the full story:

My 8770W is defective and I was told that it should be changed with a new one. The new one just arrived
and I am sending back the old one. I had done a clean win8 install with all my software and personalization.
As you may know the new 8770 dose not have the windows 7 or 8 key sticker under it. it came with no key.

When I installed windows 7 or 8 cd that came with the laptop, it was activated automatically without any need
to enter serial number etc..

Now before the laptop stop working I made a backup image with ACRONIS on my external usb device. I want
to know what will happen if I install it on the new laptop that arrives? that windows is registered with old key
from defective laptop? will that image work? will that key work? will key get updated automatically? what happens
to the windows key of a laptop you return? they kill it? ... hmmm someone stop me! i'm asking too many questions!

 

I've no idea, but I'd probs ask on the Dell Biz Laptops section, the M6700/M4700 probably have something similar. This forum is pretty much dead when it comes to discussing this year's Elitebook refresh, lol.

 

hehe yes, I see the calm in this forum and to be honest it's kind of strange and worrying! Is there something bad about HP
workstations! people stopped buying and using them!? I hope I didn't do a mistake buying one!?

For my image problem maybe I can restore the image and then change product key from within windows! the bad thing is
that I don' t know were the key is located? with the windows cd that comes with the computer? in bios? hmmmm not good
to have latest of anything! not tested and also not many know about it!

 

While Win7 key is same on all computers with same version of Win7, Win8 key is unique to the motherboard (stored in bios or something). I haven't bothered yet to read all the details how Win8 activation works but I've heard all the discs should autoactivate if they find the unique key in bios.

So in theory just restoring the image in the new computer should work. Just like it has always worked with preinstalled Win7.

 

Thanks KLF, I will then restore the image. Anyway have nothing to loose! I will report back.

Just another question:

The laptop came with a widows 7 pro and windows 8 pro Cd. If I'm right I own these 2 windows?
the question is what if I decide to use one of these windows on another pc? Will I be able to use
and activate my windows on it?

 

As long as the other PC has also a valid license sticker (in case of Win7) on it or a valid Win8 key in bios A disc is just a disc.

 

ok so I should not use the windows 7 cd and the key that came with my hp on my sony vaio that had windows vista!?

I thought it would be possible to do this as I was using the windows 8 on my 8770 and it came with both win7 and win 8!

 

Ok reporting back:

Both windows7 and 8 images were restored from old laptop to the new one and both windows
were automatically activated.