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Migrating to new machine and upgrading Windows

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Hi All,

I have Acronis True Image Premium 2014.

I want to use it to migrate a system to a new system I'm building. I will also upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional. I'd rather not upgrade Windows on the old machine, as it gives me another level of backup if anything goes really wrong.

So here's the question, will Acronis restore the old system ( which has an OEM version of Home Premium and I guess is tied to the motherboard ) to the new one? I can then upgrade to Professional, which should run on any machine. Will it baulk at restoring the image? It doesn't matter too much if the new system won't boot as I should be able to upgrade by booting from the Windows 7 Professional installation disc.

Best Regards.

Ian.

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Greetings,
As far as migration goes "aka" restoring to dissimilar hardware, yes, Acronis is capable of restoring a disk image from one PC to another. Obviously, the two must share enough similarities that the OS is compatible 32/64bit. Example you cannot upgrade from 32 bit home premium to 64bit professional.

Will the OS run on the new hardware, couldn't tell you. Do you have a key? Windows will prompt for re-activation and the key you have may not work. Phone activation might.

Also, is your professional version of windows an OEM or full retail? I have seen cases where activation will not occur between OEM versions on upgrade. To preserve your license, I would try your method first. If the OS activates on the new hardware, upgrade. If that doesn't work, you can try upgrading then migrating.

Be sure to review the instructions for restoring to dissimilar hardware, drivers, requirements before starting. Good Luck

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your reply - yes I have a key for both the Home Premium OEM edition and the disc / key for the Professional edition, which is the full retail version, not OEM.

I was rather expecting at best the migrated version would want to be activated and then not like it, as it is an OEM version tied to another machine. More likely refuse to boot, either way I would then try upgrading from the Professional disc. They'll both be 64bit.

Upgrading first is a last resort as then I'd be left with just the Acronis back up, I prefer belt and braces.

Best Regards.

Ian.

Greetings Ian,
Chipset and storage controller drivers are typically the most important (things needed) when restoring to dissimilar hardware. If the system doesn't boot or complains inaccessible boot device (example 0x000007b)... try using a windows 7 install CD and perform a start up repair before giving up.

Once again - thanks for the reply.

I will come back and say how I got on, but it'll be a while as I won't be building the machine for a couple of weeks.

Best Regards.

Ian.

Hi Again,

I've finished the build I mentioned originally and I thought I'd just say how it went.

I was coming from a Windows 7 Home Premium OEM system running XP in another partition and I wanted to end up with just Windows 7 running on a system I'd built myself. First of all it wasn't nearly as exciting as I thought it might be; no real problems occurred at all!

The Acronis restore ( this was the whole disc including the XP partition ) went off fine. The restore asked for a couple of drivers, both for 7 and XP, which I ignored. 7 booted ok ( I never tried XP ) and I was able to load the missing drivers from the Gigabyte cd that came with the motherboard. I did quite a bit of updating which included deleting the XP partion and extending the Seven partition.

Eventually I upgraded to Professional ( Home Premium said it needed to be activated in a couple of days, but I never tried this ). I tried using Windows Anytime Upgrade, and although it was happy that my Professional key was valid, it wouldn't accept it for an Anytime upgrade. Intending to see what I could achieve by booting from the Professional cd, I rebooted the system; lo and behold it started do the upgrade to Professional!.

That's about it - very straightforward really.

Best Regards.

Ian