Is windows 10 hardware dependent?

[Thedog]

Is Windows 10 still hardware dependent like old versions of Windows? Or can you just put a harddrive from one computer into another and boot (like Mac)?

 

[Porthos]

I have had good results moving a drive or an image to new hardware. Just need to be sure your new hardware is already activated with 10 first or have a retail key. Get the new drivers installed and move on.

 

[Thedog]

I have had good results moving a drive or an image to new hardware. Just need to be sure your new hardware is already activated with 10 first or have a retail key. Get the new drivers installed and move on.

Wow, this will be a real timesaver for me!

 

[SAFCasper]

Windows 10 seems to detect when the hardware has changed and re-runs the initial setup process "Please wait while detecting your hardware..." etc etc

Seems to work more often than it fails - but I don't recommend unless it's absolutely necessary. Just asking for driver conflicts, crashes, BSOD. Just because it boots up doesn't mean it's going to run perfectly.

Clean install is always the best option if possible.

 

[Porthos]

Clean install is always the best option if possible.

Always good especially if the original install was an upgrade.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Windows 10 can be installed so fast on most systems that messing with moving an install is not worth it.

 

[Thedog]

Windows 10 can be installed so fast on most systems that messing with moving an install is not worth it.

Installing all software, configuration etc... that's what takes time. If a motherboard crash and you can just move the disk to another laptop that is a major timesaver.

 

[Porthos]

Installing all software, configuration etc... that's what takes time. If a motherboard crash and you can just move the disk to another laptop that is a major timesaver.

Just because you can does not mean you should. The clean install is still preferred and less likely to hiccup later on.

I did have a computer here this week that was a move from a dell with the usual funky restore partition at the front of the drive and not a big enough system partition and the AU crashed and reverted. I clean installed 1607 and the only thing I could not / wont do is reinstall his bootleg Office 2007 Enterprise and told him ahead of time and installed Libre instead.

 

[fencepost]

I used it pretty successfully to do Windows 10 activations on systems that weren't going to be upgraded immediately - pull the current drive, slap in a temporary drive with Windows 10 preinstalled and some desktop shortcuts (to retrieve Win8 keys from BIOS, direct link to the System control panel page, etc.). I had a few where I had to tell it to reset Windows which is basically a reinstall, but for the most part it was "drop in drive and boot, Change Product Key, enter correct key from BIOS or sticker, activate, shut down, return original drive, on to the next."

My primary "temp" drive was actually an old notebook hard drive that had been replaced with an SSD, it probably would've been faster with an SSD but I didn't have a spare one handy when I first set it up.

 

[Your PCMD]

Windows 10 is only dependent to the motherboard (bios) and could care less if you changed the HDD, Memory and even the CPU. I have switched (upgraded) the CPU in 3 machines without a hitch. All Windows did was boot up and tell me I needed to restart to enable changes, did that and works perfect. Same with cloning a mech HDD to an SSD. I have had no issues.

 

[sapphirescales]

If it would only detect when you move computers and strip all the drivers. Now THAT would be great. That being said, it DOES work, but you should really do a clean install unless you're imaging 20+ of the EXACT same computer or something.

 

[GTP]

Is Windows 10 still hardware dependent like old versions of Windows?

For the most part, no. The only trouble I've ever had is with computers that were upgraded from Win 7.
I'm not sure why exactly, but it seems that clean installs are fine and don't have issues..

 

[Porthos]

strip all the drivers. Now THAT would be great.

Ghostbuster will do that.
https://ghostbuster.codeplex.com/

 

[cypress]

I am just not a fan of an upgrade. Anyone that has brought me a PC that was upgraded to Windows 10 and starts having issues I recommend a complete Reinstall and that has fixed quirky issues with sound and such.

I did a clean install from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 and it worked with no issues. I guess Microsoft is going to let this upgrade period ride out for a lot longer than I would have thought.

 

[NviGate Systems]

One nice thing about Windows 10 is that with a little help a Bios installation can be converted to Uefi without reinstall. Have done that for mission critical recoveries where we have to get a system booting so the client can export or run something. It works in reverse too.

 

[PCX]

If you have the most recent Windows 10 build, drivers backed up (or have a repository of backed up drivers) and you use Ninite, you should be able to get a Windows 10 reinstall done in about 30-45 minutes (actual hands on time, maybe 15 minutes). Unless there is proprietary software that you are trying to transfer to another computer, it really isn't feasible to try and transfer a hard drive or image from one computer to another. For us, this usually only an option when working with small businesses.

 

[NviGate Systems]

Yep, I only use that as last resort where customer has special software they must use or something that can't be easily transferred. I have a Wyse ZX0 that is compatible with EFI and BIOS and will boot practically anything, perfect for quick recon when a customer forgets the e-mail they used for Office Activation or the edition of Office. It typically boots any Windows 8 or 10 image.

I also am starting doing complete backups of HDD's to VHD, which makes it easy to clone back, but also fire up a client's machine in a VM to grab stuff like AV Keys that are shown in the app but not easily exportable.

 

[LordIntruder]

Had a machine upgraded from Windows 7 this morning. Dead mainboard. Stuck the hdd into a new machine. Everything works fine but the license and the nic. Deleted the nic in device manager and did a search for new hardware. After that, reactivated the machine with a new license key. Done. Wish it would have been this easy in Windows 7 times.