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Is doing a total move from one OLD dying Windows 10 PC to a brand new one possible using True Image 2018

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I have been using Acronis backup products for a number of years and have never needed to do anything except backups but now unfortunately my PC is starting to show some signs of age and I am wanting to buy a new one that is going to be light years different from the old one.

My question I think is pretty simple.

Using True Image 2018 how do I move everything from my old PC a new one?

I have been reading in this forum trying to find another person with this question and have not found one but I have seen some with close questions and some of the answers kind of scared me.  I am really hoping that the process is very straightforward and simple and will allow me to have a new PC with everything I currently have on the old one even down to my screen savers and locations of the icons on my desktop.

One of the reasons I upgraded to True Image 2017 and then to 2018 was that I wanted to have the ability to restore to dissimilar hardware knowing that my current PC is old and that anything I would buy now would be so different that my only other options would be to do a program by program re-install of everything.  Obviously this is not a real good option so I am hoping that there is a step by step procedure I can use.

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

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Steve, welcome to these User Forums.

In principle you can migrate your installed Windows OS plus all applications, settings and data using Acronis True Image from your old computer to a new one.

In reality, there is a lot more to be considered when doing this type of migration, and you may need to also prepare, create and use the Acronis Universal Restore media as part of this process.

Some important points / questions.

What version of Windows OS do you currently have, and what type of license is held for this?
Ideally you should be migrating from Windows 10 to a new computer that also a license for the same version of Windows 10 that has already been activated on that hardware.  By same version I mean Windows 10 64-bit Home on both, or Pro on both, etc.

Migrating Windows 10 across different hardware is a lot easier to do than doing the same with older versions of Windows OS.  OEM licenses for Windows OS cannot be migrated as are tied to the hardware where the OS was installed and activated.

You also cannot migrate from 32-bit to 64-bit versions of the same OS without needing a new license (or the opposite direction).

Another consideration here is the BIOS mode used by Windows on each computer - older computers tend to have been Legacy BIOS systems using MBR partitioning for disk drives.  Newer computers are now mainly UEFI BIOS (with or without Secure Boot enabled) and use GPT partitioning form disk drives.  It is possible to migrate the Windows OS from Legacy to UEFI by restoring an Acronis disk & partitions backup from the Acronis Rescue media booted in UEFI mode on the new computer.  The new computer would need to support Legacy/CSM BIOS mode in order to migrate a Legacy / MBR system 'as is'.

The disk controller SATA mode is also an area for consideration as this needs to be matched between both computers as additional device drivers will be needed if there are differences here, i.e. old computer uses AHCI SATA mode but new uses RAID mode.

Final comments (at this point):  If your old computer is running such as Windows 7 and you buy a new computer which comes with Windows 10, then I would recommend just migrating your user data to the new computer, leave Windows 7 behind and start clean with Windows 10.  This will require that you have to reinstall all your applications and programs, plus reconfigure any personal settings etc, but you will have significant benefits in doing so than trying to migrate Windows 7, especially as Microsoft are dropping support for Windows 7 in around 2 years time.

In reply to by truwrikodrorow…

Steve,

 

Thanks for the quick reply.  I will try to reply to your questions/concerns the best I can.

Your first point is Windows version.  I currently am running Windows 10 Home, 64bit and I'm pretty sure the PC I'm looking to buy is the same so I would have 2 legit licenses.

At this point I do not know what the BIOS in the new PC might be but my old one is definitely MBR so that could cause some issues depending on how I have to handle my old components.

As for SATA I am guessing that my old PC is using the ACH mode and not RAID.  Is that a concern if I do not use any of the old hardware and use whatever might come with the new PC?  Components that it comes with should be configured to work with the hardware and that Windows should install all the correct drivers for the hardware it see 's upon install. Right?

The new PC I am thinking about has an SSD as it's primary boot disk and I think I would like to use it if possible at least from what I've heard they are far superior to an older HDD and the numbers do work good as far as size.

So once I figure out if the Legacy/CSM BIOS is an issue all I would have to do is then turn on the new PC and let Windows install do it's thing with drivers etc. and then once done I could use the Acronis Restore Media I have sitting here waiting and then plug in my external disk drive with my backup on it and tell it to restore.  Could it be that simple?  I don't even have to install Acronis on my new PC to get this transfered do I?  I did buy a 2 license copy just in case I needed to have it in both places but that is the least of my worries I just do not want to have to go through the pain and agony of installing everything from scratch.  If I have to go that route I would probably just wait until my PC died and then figure out what to do.

Again thanks for the help it is much appreciated.

Steve, thanks for the further information.  Having 2 computers both with Windows 10 Home 64-bit will make licensing very much easier - activation is based on hardware signature, so moving your old Win 10 OS to the new hardware will be able to be activated using the new signature and license.

Migrating from Legacy to UEFI should also not be a major issue as ATI can handle this during the recovery.  Any new computer will be UEFI but it is possible that it can support Legacy/CSM which would allow you to continue to use a Legacy boot for Windows.

The disk controller mode used by the new computer will depend on the type of SSD drive and how this is installed, some attach via the normal SATA controller ports, but some newer drives use new technology not present in your older computer, i.e. NVMe M.2 SSD drives that are PCIe card drives and require special drivers and configuration.

You wrote: "all I would have to do is then turn on the new PC and let Windows install do it's thing with drivers etc. and then once done I could use the Acronis Restore Media I have sitting here waiting and then plug in my external disk drive with my backup on it and tell it to restore.  Could it be that simple? "

Sorry, definitley not that simple!  There would be no point letting Windows install do its thing with drivers etc because the first action of the Acronis Rescue media when restoring would be to wipe the target SSD drive ready to create the partition system needed by the restored OS.

The key benefits of having Windows installed on the new computer is that you can identify what actual hardware is present, what device drivers are being used etc.  I would also recommend making a full disk & partitions backup of the Windows OS on the new computer to give you a way of getting back to Day 1 of that computer should you need to do so.

If you install your second copy of ATI 2018 on the new computer, you can then create the Acronis Rescue and Universal Restore media from that computer and include any required extra device drivers from the computer too.