Solved Can I just restore a good image to a new PC?

Wisewiz · Dec 17, 2023

I have System 1, a Lenovo ThinkCentre M920S SFF i5-8400 (2019) running 11 Pro 23H2 22631.2861 perfectly (AFAIK). I'm getting a Lenovo ThinkCentre M920S SFF i7-9700 (2021) that will come with W11 Pro pre-installed and activated, and probably with a lot of unwanted baggage, like McAFunk and the full set of store apps. I could, ofc, format the drive and do a clean install, but I'm thinking since I'm happy with the present VERY customized and trimmed OS and apps, and would rather not go through all the customizing and program-installing and configuring again, I'd like to image my OS-and-programs disk with MR and just do a restore to the main disk of the newer machine.

Any good reason to NOT do it this way?

OAT · Dec 17, 2023

Wisewiz said:
Any good reason to NOT do it this way?

No, the OS will adapt to the new system.
I would do the same thing.

Ghot · Dec 17, 2023

Wisewiz said:
Any good reason to NOT do it this way?

That's more or less how I upgraded to Win 11.

I bought another identical SSD (500MB), and restored my Win 10 image to it.
Then I did an In-Place upgrade from Win 10 to Win 11 on the new SSD.

So now I have....

And since Win 10 was all tweaked and clean and had all my programs installed... in 30-35 minutes I was up and running on Win 11.

The only thing that caused a problem was that I had "Disable Action Center" checked (enabled) in Winaero Tweaker on Windows 10. On Windows 11 I had to UN-check that, to get the calendar to work.

Wisewiz · Dec 17, 2023

Thanks, Ghot and OAT (and any other _ote rhymes reading this :zany:

)

When I look at the list of mods to my OS, almost all (with sincere gratitude) from @Brink's fertile mind (I count, just in .reg files, 9 Adds, 15 Disables, 6 Enables, and 21 Removes), and then I think about how long it took to get my 40-odd programs set up to run the way I want them to, I really want to just duplicate that achievement, not start all over again climbing that mountain.

With the support I get here, I'll do just fine, I'm sure.

glasskuter · Dec 17, 2023

@Wisewiz I did that without issue....as for as Windows was concerned. But remember, most licensed software these days is tied to your machine ID (Macrium, Office, MWB Pro and about 4 more that I had,)

When I restored an image, those apps were no longer licensed & I couldn't enter my license key to activate them. They were still tied to the old machine. I had to first deactivate and uninstall that software from my old machine(I might not have needed to uninstall but did anyway), make a new image, restore that image to the new machine, reinstall the software and activate the licenses to recognize the new machine. I guess in a pinch I could have contacted all those companies and eventually got my license moved to the new machine, but it sure would have been a long drawn out mess. Deactivating was much easier.

glasskuter · Dec 17, 2023

@Wisewiz I thought of something else. If Macrium won't see your drive don't forget about how manufacturers enable raid by default these days.
There will either be a mismatch between the sata mode operation (raid) settings in UEFI bios OR the new machine uses a different version of IRST than the old one. So have all your new machine's Intel Rapid Storage Controller drivers unzipped and ready just in case you need them.

Wisewiz · Dec 17, 2023

@glasskuter

Thanks very much for the reminder. I'll watch out for that. I have several MWB Premium and Macrium Home licenses, and I think I'll be able to use the not-yet-used registrations on the new PC. But we'll see. Not many of the 40-odd are possible (minor) problems. I'm putting System 2 (in my specs here) out to pasture (well, actually, Heather is gong to inherit it, but I'll deal with that when the time comes), and System 1 will become my Test machine, while the newer, slightly higher-powered ThinkCentre sidles into the Number One spot. That will put two (count 'em, two) fully compliant W11 systems in my office, and I can breathe easy for now when Patch Tuesdays roll around.

Wisewiz · Dec 17, 2023

@glasskuter
Thanks again! I'll watch out, but this is a refurb previously used in a corporate office in Toronto for about a year, and I don't anticipate any RAID or IRST problems, but I'll be alert and prepared.

cereberus · Dec 17, 2023

Wisewiz said:
I have System 1, a Lenovo ThinkCentre M920S SFF i5-8400 (2019) running 11 Pro 23H2 22631.2861 perfectly (AFAIK). I'm getting a Lenovo ThinkCentre M920S SFF i7-9700 (2021) that will come with W11 Pro pre-installed and activated, and probably with a lot of unwanted baggage, like McAFunk and the full set of store apps. I could, ofc, format the drive and do a clean install, but I'm thinking since I'm happy with the present VERY customized and trimmed OS and apps, and would rather not go through all the customizing and program-installing and configuring again, I'd like to image my OS-and-programs disk with MR and just do a restore to the main disk of the newer machine.

Any good reason to NOT do it this way?

It will probably work but no matter how similar pcs are, they often have slightly different internal conponents.

As a precaution, I would export all drivers from new pc to a usb flash drive so you have them immediately available should you need to update/replace any drivers.

After you have restored image to new pc, go to device manager and see if any unresolved drivers (exclamation marked).

If so, you should be able to update them by pointing to usb flash drive containing backed up drivers.

Wisewiz · Dec 17, 2023

@cereberus

I already do a fresh backup of my drivers to my storage drive every month, using
dism /online /export-driver /destination:"F:\Z HC1 Drivers MMM"
so I'll boot the new one and put its drivers on a flash and have them at the ready when I first boot the restored System 1. Thanks for the advice.

Fabler2 · Dec 17, 2023

One thing I would do first of all is to make an image of your newer laptop, then, if it doesn't work out as expected, you'll have that to fall back on.

Wisewiz · Dec 17, 2023

@Fabler2

Good thinking. I'm not sure I can image it by using my bootable MR rescue flash. I'll check on that. Otherwise, I'll just install MR Free to the New, make the image to an external, and have that ready in case anything goes awry.

Porthos · Dec 17, 2023

Wisewiz said:
I have several MWB Premium and Macrium Home licenses, and I think I'll be able to use the not-yet-used registrations on the new PC. But we'll see.

Why not deactivate those first before you make the image to put on the replacement computer?

Wisewiz · Dec 17, 2023

@Porthos

Good idea. Will do. Deactivating on the soon-to-be-decommissioned will make sure there are available licenses on the New and on the new System 2, but I'll deactivate the licenses on the current System 1 before I image it for restoration to the New Kid on the Block, and then reactivate on demoted System 1 and activate on New System 1. Should work. It's all legal and above-board.

cereberus · Dec 17, 2023

Wisewiz said:
@Fabler2

Good thinking. I'm not sure I can image it by using my bootable MR rescue flash. I'll check on that. Otherwise, I'll just install MR Free to the New, make the image to an external, and have that ready in case anything goes awry.

It usually works - main failure case being if rescue drive is made on a pc without nvme drives, but new device has nvme drives (those needeing IRST drivers).

Even then, you can inject the IRST drivers into boot.wim on Rescue USB to get round this (or create it on new pc as you discuss).

Wisewiz · Dec 17, 2023

cereberus said:
It usually works - main failure case being if rescue drive is made on a pc without nvme drives, but new device has nvme drives (those needeing IRST drivers).

I think initially, I'll have a standard SATA SSD in New, with W11 on it. I'll be imaging from System 1, which has two NVMes, one of which has the OS and programs (the image I'm going to restore to New). I'll put in my NVMes as soon as I can get them, and I'll restore the OS and programs from the SSD to the new NVMe then. Any problem with that?

I did that with both the current System 1 and System 2: imaged standard SSD contents and restored to NVMe.

cereberus · Dec 17, 2023

Wisewiz said:
I think initially, I'll have a standard SATA SSD in New, with W11 on it. I'll be imaging from System 1, which has two NVMes, one of which has the OS and programs (the image I'm going to restore to New). I'll put in my NVMes as soon as I can get them, and I'll restore the OS and programs from the SSD to the new NVMe then. Any problem with that?

I did that with both the current System 1 and System 2: imaged standard SSD contents and restored to NVMe.

That should work as sata ssd drivers are pretty generic.

Wisewiz · Dec 17, 2023

@cereberus

Thanks. I'm optimistic. In the end, if anything goes wrong, it's no big deal to start over and get it right.

Rollback_Jockey · Dec 18, 2023

Wisewiz said:
I have System 1, a Lenovo ThinkCentre M920S SFF i5-8400 (2019) running 11 Pro 23H2 22631.2861 perfectly (AFAIK).

Wisewiz said:
Any good reason to NOT do it this way?

I do this everytime, that's why ALL my computers are identical from a desktop point of view.

Solved Can I just restore a good image to a new PC?

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