Cloning win7 - Licence

[guiado]

I'm going to have to install a larger HD and looking at using Clonezilla to do the image/restore. I am confident this will work but will there be an issue with the licence - in terms of the software suddenly sitting on an HD with a different UUID? There are lots of info on the web about imaging/restroing, using all sorts of utilities, but none speak about the licence - perhaps this (licence) is not an issue. Any help appreciated.

 

[vacunita]

There should be no issue. Windows supports a certain amount of hardware changes to the PC without requiring re-activation. If only the HD is changing, and the drive cloning is successful. It should boot up as if nothing happened. As it will validate with the MB and a few other components as well.

http://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/feature/How-Windows-7-hardware-upgrades-affect-licensing

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Phil AKA Vacunita
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[cdogg]

As Phil said, you won't have any issues if the only component changing is the hard drive.

Since you are using Clonezilla, be sure to choose "expert" mode, and towards the end of the wizard, select the option "k1" which is to resize the partition table proportionally. This will resize the partition to make use of the extra space. The first time you bootup on the new drive, Windows 7 will launch chkdsk, which you'll need to let finish. Takes about 2-3 minutes and then Windows will bootup normally.



-Carl
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[jsteph]

I have had to re-activate Windows 7 after installing only a new SSD, on several occasions.

However, in these cases it may be that there were other hardware changes since the first time Windows was activated--I'm not sure how often Windows "phones home" to check activation--but I'd replaced other key hardware pieces on these machines without a reactivation required, maybe now the SSD was the tipping point.

So I think your mileage may vary--it's best to have the key (or a key) on hand just in case.
--Jim

 

[goombawaho]

Yes, there is a threshold that will trigger re-activation. I've NEVER seen a hard drive change require reactivation personally. Or RAM, video card, network card.

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