Clone Windows 10 for 2nd Machine

I suspect Acronis True Image may be a better option. The way I would approach it is to make a backup of the Notebook to a USB HDD, then restore it to the Desktop using the Acronis recovery media. When creating the backup you can exclude any folders you do not wish to include. You then use the ATI recovery media to restore to the Desktop. You can repeat the process whenever there are major changes to the the Notebook. 

One thing you need to bear in mind is the complication of licence restrictions, both for the OS (operating system) and any applications.

If you already have the desktop, and you have activated Windows, that simplifies things. However, it would have to have the same version of Windows installed (for example Windows 10 x64 Home). It may be more difficult when it comes to applications - you may need to uninstall before activating on the Desktop. You may need to contact the software vendor if cannot uninstall. It is a good idea to keep a record of user names, passwords and serial numbers for each application.

Ian

Hello Greg!

What you want isn't a "simple" need at all. Switching to a secondary PC near instantly requires quite some planning and you might run into licence problems (among other things) as Ian already noted.

It's more easily achievable to make regular enough backups that you can restore to your second computer if you need to do so. You'll also need to take into account the (dis)similarity of your second PC, as you might need to include drivers for it in the recovery media.

I too advise to make a list of any licenced software you are using, and check whether they can be transferred to another (i.e. not OEM licence for example). Also think about how much work you are willing to lose in event of a failure and make a backup schedule accordingly.

Most importantly, actually try the scenario before you need it in a haste. You could still run into previously not encountered problems, but at least it's not totally new when you need it the most.

-- Peter

Another alternative approach would be to use a Virtual Machine which could then be hosted on another PC with suitable hardware.

Licensing will still come into play for any software, including Windows, that uses hardware based activation based on a hardware signature.

This doesn't answer the question about keeping multiple copies of data in sync between different systems but this is something that can be accomplished using a variety of different tools, i.e. storing data in a cloud drive such as OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive etc where the data is synced to all systems signing in to the same account, or using other synchronisation software applications.

I use VMware virtual machines running on my Windows 10 gaming laptop that share data using OneDrive for a variety of different test systems, including Windows XP, 7, 10 & Ubuntu 20.04.

There are tools that can convert a Windows OS to a virtual machine.

Ian, Peter, and Steve:

Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful replies!  Much appreciated.  What I was looking for was something like Zinstall, but with a more sophisticated interface.  This interface would realize the following:

1. The Windows license on the second machine is indeed valid and would not attempt to clone the base O/S, just the user-defined data (C:\Users) and the Program Data.  I would understand that I would have to tweak the target machine O/S after the transfer, but nothing that would be critical to its operation.

2. The application would indeed transfer application license data, but then I realize that I would have to straighten out each application that had a problem, e.g., deactivating the license from the source box online and activating the license on the target box, re-entering activation information directly into the app, etc.

3. The transfer would consist of a 'copy' of the aforementioned data, but in a way so that upon launch of an application on the target box would not render "can't find <system file>" and other re-install messages.  In other words, licensing would be the sole impediment to immediate usage.

As to the particulars, the True Image solution seems to be the closest to this from the Acronis product suite, but what I had hoped was that if the tool understands the task at hand, which I believe is indeed simple in concept (it's only the arbitrary software restrictions that make it difficult), then it would analyze the dataset for issues, such as licensing (there are software programs for this), and report these to the user prior to executing the transfer.  This would also include Catch-22 issues such as the target machine recognizing the USB ports as legitimate during transfer and the inevitable series of reboots.  (All this is accomplished by connecting the two machines together and letting Acronis see both.)

To be fair, I would expect a task-based application for this kind of thing to be more expensive than the 'toolbox' approach used by Acronis which requires users to be able to conceive for themselves which product(s) to select.  I realize that cloning a PC is complicated, but the cloud is no solution when it comes to being able to use the data we've saved.

I'm going to look into the VM solution, as well.

Thanks!

Greg Winters wrote:

Ian, Peter, and Steve:

Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful replies!  Much appreciated.  What I was looking for was something like Zinstall, but with a more sophisticated interface.  This interface would realize the following:

1. The Windows license on the second machine is indeed valid and would not attempt to clone the base O/S, just the user-defined data (C:\Users) and the Program Data.  I would understand that I would have to tweak the target machine O/S after the transfer, but nothing that would be critical to its operation.

2. The application would indeed transfer application license data, but then I realize that I would have to straighten out each application that had a problem, e.g., deactivating the license from the source box online and activating the license on the target box, re-entering activation information directly into the app, etc.

3. The transfer would consist of a 'copy' of the aforementioned data, but in a way so that upon launch of an application on the target box would not render "can't find <system file>" and other re-install messages.  In other words, licensing would be the sole impediment to immediate usage.

As to the particulars, the True Image solution seems to be the closest to this from the Acronis product suite, but what I had hoped was that if the tool understands the task at hand, which I believe is indeed simple in concept (it's only the arbitrary software restrictions that make it difficult), then it would analyze the dataset for issues, such as licensing (there are software programs for this), and report these to the user prior to executing the transfer.  This would also include Catch-22 issues such as the target machine recognizing the USB ports as legitimate during transfer and the inevitable series of reboots.  (All this is accomplished by connecting the two machines together and letting Acronis see both.)

To be fair, I would expect a task-based application for this kind of thing to be more expensive than the 'toolbox' approach used by Acronis which requires users to be able to conceive for themselves which product(s) to select.  I realize that cloning a PC is complicated, but the cloud is no solution when it comes to being able to use the data we've saved.

I'm going to look into the VM solution, as well.

Thanks!

 

Thank you for this message, informative!

Clone Windows 10 for another machine. Windows 10 is a great operating system, but it does have a downside: it is rather expensive. However, you can save money on the software by running an evaluation copy of Windows 10 on one computer, and then cloning that image over to a new computer. As long as the hardware of the two machines is identical, this technique works. It's important to note that this process will not copy over any installed programs or files.