Move Windows OS to Mac

Learner be aware that with Sierra still having Beta's rolled out, I would make sure that Bootcamp is going to work for you. Also the drive space is going to suffer if you either do not get the internal M.2 upgraded to a larger one or make 10 a very slim install. As for Parallels, there have been some problems with 10 and El Capitan. I would expect the same with Sierra.

2008 is pretty good for a laptop in this day and age. On the humor side. I actually have a 21 year old Toshiba Satellite downstairs that is running Puppy Linux and still going strong.

Make sure that you keep a image of the drive in case 10 pukes on you or causes Sierra to stop booting up.

This is 13 months old, but appears from the article that with VM Fusion and Parallels, you are going to have to now pay for a license to run 10. Year-old Parallels and VMware software won’t be updated for Windows 10 | Ars Technica

Learner said:

My main reason to go towards Mac is to get away from Windows issues so will start using Mac and get well acquainted with the OS and use Windows exclusively for my order processing software and MS office. If I follow your method of using bootcamp I would be creating a dual boot system, right? I heard that we can have Windows installed using Parallels or VM Fusion so that we can concurrently work in Apple OS and Windows OS and could even transfer files between the 2 OSs. Is it true? If so how to accomplish that? Thanks a lot in advance.

Jumping from Windows to Mac OS-X is a bit of a learning curve. I am using the Logitech MX Mouse on my Macbook Air, so that I have proper right clicking. Using the touchpad takes a bit of time to hit the double finger right click to copy. Finder is your Explorer, Spotlight is your Cortona. F4 gets you to the folders with the app's if you do not use Finder and the Applications folder. F3 takes the place of Alt-Tab. Command key and F gets you the search in applications.

I am using Libre Office for word processing, since Pages is a little short on features. Also you can keep your documents on iCloud to keep them synced between the Macbook and for access on the go if you do not have your macbook by going to icloud.com.

Learner said:

Thanks much for your responses. My HP laptop is from 2008 which came with Vista and I bought Windows 7 on a CD which I don't know if it's a OEM or not and I still have that CD somewhere so can always check. Now that my HP is at the end of its life I wanted to replace it. I'm just tired of Windows constant updates and issues I have decided to go for a MacBook Pro in Oct 2016 once the newer version comes out. I have one order processing program which runs on only Windows and doesn't run on Mac and also this program works in conjunction wit MS Outlook so I just cannot escape Windows completely and hence the need to have Windows on Mac.

Looked at Parallels and they are good with Windows 8.1 but there is no mention of 10. Even Windows emulation software would do too.

It's likely that you have a retail copy of Windows 7, so it would be transferable. (If it's a System Builder OEM version, you're not supposed to transfer it, but it may be possible.)

I'll leave to others how to do it, as I have never done so. (Haven't bought any major Apple hardware since 1991.)

Edit: later:

It occurs to me to wonder whether a Win 10 upgrade from a retail Win 7 is transferrable. The free upgrade program nominally ended at the end of July. (As far as I know, it's still available in part, although you may have to claim use of accessibility features.) I hope that it would be possible to install 10 on a new machine, and activate it using the retail Win 7 key.

bobkn not that hard with Sierra. Boot Camp Assistant takes all of the hard work out of it for you. Now the even better plus is that Apple is introducing the new Mac lines with AMD APU/CPU/GPU.