moving a Vista hard drive

[hinesward]

I got a new laptop for a user. The old one is fine. He just wanted a smaller one.

He has Windows Vista on his old laptop. I would like to move his old hard drive to his new laptop.

With any version of Microsoft Windows up to 2000, this generally was not a problem, with the exception of various driver issues.

Now, Microsoft has sabotaged its OS to make this more difficult. This sabotage started with Windows XP. Both laptops are licensed to run Vista.

Will I have any problems if I simply move the drive? What kind of precautions should I take? Is there anything I need to?

 

[linney]

What Laptop's version of Vista will be running (attempting to, anyway) on which Laptop?

You may run into Licensing problems, OEM versions are limited to the machine that they were installed on by the manufacturer. If they are Retail versions then a transfer may be possible, but in either case the Eula should be studied.

Hard drives die from time to time so there shouldn't be any problem in swapping hard drives and re-installing Vista on the correct machines.

Windows Easy Transfer

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/easytransfer.mspx

 

[hinesward]

It's not an ideal solution, yet it sounds like the best one available.

 

[hinesward]

This was excellent. It was kind of slow, but the user was very happy in the end.