Transferring SSD with Win 7 to new computer

Two days ago I bought a new SSD and the upgrade disk of Windows 7 Pro from the university that I work for. I installed the clean version of Win 7 Pro on the new SSD in my laptop and used the key on the back of the install disk. Now my plan was to buy a new laptop in a few months and transfer the SSD with Win 7 to the new laptop. Am I going to run into issues with the transfer of the Win 7 key to the new computer? Is the key tied to my old laptop now? I didn't think about this before and I wouldn't have bothered to install Win 7 if I didn't think I could just transfer the whole drive to the new computer and have everything all set to go.

 

The Win7 key will work fine with the new computer. However, you'll need to reinstall Windows once the SSD is moved to the new computer, since the OS is designed to only run on one computer at a time per install.

 

there was a recent thread that addressed this. i'll dig it up tomorrow if nobody beats me to it.

somebody had said it's possible to swap win7 drives "inter-rig" as it were, even though you can expect to run into driver issues.

Sent from my PI39100 using Board Express

 

No, that's not possible. Unless you transfer to identical hardware, you'll run into much more than "driver issues". The new computer will not be able to boot from the transferred SSD. You need to either reinstall, or copy a disk image with a "universal restore" option that is offered by various disk imaging programs.

 

I'd appreciate the thread mattcheau if you can dig that up. Otherwise it looks like I'll plan to reinstall everything. It doesn't really take that long to do since I've only got a handful of programs running on it. I was mostly worried about tying the Win 7 key to my old computer and I'm glad to hear that isn't the case.

 

looks like there's not "much more" than driver issues so long as you use the system preparation tool. thanks for the helpful and insightful reply though, Pirx. rep'd.

 

Thanks mattcheau, that's super helpful! The system preparation tool does exactly what I would want. I'll give it a try whenever I manage to get a new computer. +rep to you

 

Yes, if you use sysprep, you can revert your installation to a state where it will re-initialize the HAL (hardware abstraction layer) on reboot. This is, in fact, how the factory images on the computers sold commercially are prepared (well, essentially).

 

However, be warned, you must make sure that your new laptop will support the new SSD drive, make sure that your MB is old as coal and supports it. You would not believe how many people i have coming into my store asking to put an SSD on a Pentium II computer MoBo.

 

Well..

- OP did say he was putting the SSD in a new computer, and any computer with a SATA port will work with a SSD, and...

- Any computer with a SATA port will work with a SSD.

So OP probably doesn't have to worry about the SSD not working (unless it's an OCZ drive)

While the majority of SSDs are SATA-type, there are even a few IDE SSDs out there that could work with such an old computer as a PII-based system.