copy this installation to another pc

With businesses multiple machines will see the OS upgraded by way of cloning drives or restoring a full image between identical machines using a volume licensing. That's mostly seen with the Enterprise or Corporate edition. There is a way however to strip down Home or Pro single user installs in order to move a drive into a new machine or restore an image from the drive on the first machine that takes Windows down to the bare bones and will need a new product key. Otherwise the transfer is invalid!

The best move if the other machine already has it's own legit copy of Windows would be to simply follow the guide here in order to see a nice fresh clean install go onto the next machine without worry about things like the 10 install having been bound to another set of hardwares as well as loaded with drivers for a totally different machine. Instead you start fresh with the 10 installer creating a brand new profile as well as downloading and installing the correct drivers for the hardwares on this next system not having anything lingering around from another machine.

I believe it was Kari that had explained this on a thread lately for how to strip Windows down to the bate bones including the removal of all device drivers and the hardware profile for the original set of hardwares. But once Windows is down to the bare bones it simply brings you back to the "Square One" need to reinstall everything fresh and it may as well be the OS too! with that much involved.

The only time it would come to that or should is when not having any media or option for download of the OEM recovery image, etc. and that would be the only way to see the same version and edition on a new drive or even new pc. Otherwise when dealing with a brand new set of hardwares the clean install is the best move for the best results.

Now in regards to the OEM licensing and media there are actually three types. 1) Dell, HP, Toshiba, Acer, etc. are the pre-manufactured OEM/recovery media no longer provided but made up with a utility you download 2)OEM for System builders also applies to 3) is the media that goes along with the custom made for sale pcs! Actually it isn't so much the media but the license goes with that pc only. And the 3) also applying to the home user purchasing an OEM for System Builder type disk from a place like Newegg or TigerDirect and when the first system you own yourself goes DOA like a board or cpu toast and you end up putting a new one together here's the touchy part about using the same media on the replacement machine where you call into MS directly. They transfer the OEM activation to the new machine at their end.

You simply can not repair and run the old case with the same key any longer once that is seen to. Of course this also applies to the Retail product key as well while it is a bit easier to see that transfered over to any new machine voiding it on the previous. That is in compliance with the EULA there. (EULA=End User Licensing Agreement)

In years past mainly with XP I ran into this when going to build a new case for a complete upgrade after a couple of years and called into MS who had to have known there was a major hardware change. But after a couple of years or even only six months MS has allowed some room for hardware changes as they know people will often upgrade different things like the cpu, drive, more memory, etc. When the old Vista case used for testing the 7 beta and RC builds stuffed a short time into 2010 after buying the retail pre-SP1 media for 7 I had to call in when both board and supply took a nose dive and the new case was put together.

While the Vista media there was another OEM disk it only saw that one case and died along with it as far as the key is concerned while the dvd was used to reinstall Vista on an old laptop a few times simply entering the key off of the sticker attached to the laptop itself for that OEM key.

Twice the original HD and then replacement drive failed(from rough handling by kids using it no less) explaining that one. In each of those instances a clean install of Windows was seen to automatically without any hesitation followed by seeing all the apps and settings tended to from scratch. And as Mark Phelps was pointing out there are a ton of imaging and backup programs these days to choose from but the one catch will be the need to either see the present license transferred over or buy a new one.

This tutorial was written for Windows 7 at our sister site the Seven Forums but it applies to Windows 10, too: Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer - Windows 7 Help Forums

Please notice what the tutorial says about activation:

   Warning

Using this method causes Windows 7 to lose all activation information, and it needs to be reactivated afterwards. If your Windows 7 is an OEM version, you might not be able to reactivate it, at least not without phone activation option.

In Windows 10 the activation issue is fortunately not as complicated as in Windows 7: after preparing Windows 10 to be transferred to another PC, if you continue using Windows on that same computer and it was activated before you prepared it to transfer, you can simply skip the product key dialog on the first boot after the operation. Windows 10 will be automatically activated.

However, Windows 10 on the other PC, the one you transferred the image to needs to be activated with a valid and individual product key.

Kari

Mark Phelps said:

There is also the Laplink PC Mover Pro product that allows you to migrate apps, settings, and data from one PC to another -- but you do that after you do a clean-install on the new PC.

Eeaseus PCtrans does similar but is approx half the cost of Laplink.