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Possibility of second Windows 10 installation by cloning

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Hi everyone,

just a short question to ensure the possibility of my idea. As stated in the title, I want to have two Windows 10 installations (Yes, I have 2 licenses) on my computer, on different drives (both SSD).

As it takes a long time to install all drivers, updates and so on, I'd like to save some time by cloning installations. My idea was the following:

1. Install Windows 10 on the first SDD and set it up properly with all drivers etc.
2. Install Windows 10 on second drive
3. Clone the content of the first, set-up installation to the second drive.

Would that theoretically work with Acronis, or do I have to go the long and time-consuming way?

If it works, are there some things to look out for?

 

Thank you for your help, best regards.

0 Users found this helpful

Cloning is a process in which data on one disk is copied bit for bit to another disk.   Therefore, OS installation is not necessary.   If your desire is to have a second disk on hand with a complete OS setup as a safety net then setup the first disk as desired, clone that disk to another, test the newly cloned disk to make sure it functions correctly, then remove for safe keeping.

Each installation of Windows will get its own security identifiers, therefore cloning one installation to the other will not work correctly without quite a bit of extra work.

Better to just bite the bullet and install manually both times.

Joe

Clean installing W10 from an ISO image should only take a short while, somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes SSD-HDD depending. There are no large numbers of updates to install. The latest is 'build' of W10 is complete in itself.