Macrium: deploy to different hardware

Hi there

@thomaseg1

It actually works brilliantly

Note though you don't even need the PAID version -- you can simply restore an image to a different computer. Then what you need to do probably is go into "Fix Windows Boot problems" before booting the restored machine. Do this via he stand alone boot recovery media.

Now Boot your restored machine -- Windows will try and do some updating etc etc and after a little while it will boot OK. You might need to update manually some drivers - although these days Windows is pretty good at that - just check in device manager what needs updating.

I've done this restoring an AMD machine on to an INTEL laptop - works fine -- and if the Laptop already had an activated version of Windows you'll probably see that the restored Windows is still activated via digital license.

If on a Network change the machine name otherwise you'll have 2 identical named machines on your LAN which can cause all sorts of weird problems with things like file sharing etc etc !!!.

For Virtual machines -- no problem moving them around between different hardware and even different HOST OS'es - but if using VMWARE do click the "I Moved it" box rather than the "I copied it" box at first boot of the VM - otherwise VMWARE will create a new machine GUUID which windows will see as a new machine and want activation. I think also in HYPER-V you can keep the same GUUID but I'm not a HYPER-V Guru but it must be do-able.

I.E you can copy / move a Windows VM from Linux HOST to Windows HOST and vice versa without issues if using the same Virtual Machine software e.g VMWare.

Note though other products installed on a copied REAL (not the VM) machine such as Office *Might* but not always require re-activation.

You can also restore a VM via Macrium to a Real machine -- I've done this several times as a V2P (Virtual to Physical) conversion. In this case you definitely need to use the "Fix Windows boot problems" before booting the restored machine. You will also need to increase the partition size of the "C" drive (usually) as I'd assume you won't have allocated a big "C" drive to a Windows VM -- use a stand alone version of any partition manager to do this --I use GPARTED but there are others. Do this though only after the target Real machine boots successfully.

Doing a V2P conversion is a great way if you want to quickly have a new physical machine without going through a whole Windows install / upgrade - especially if you have a load of installed applications which have been tested and run fine on the VM.

However the process most certainly does work (whether using a VM image or a Real machine image) and in general you don't need the paid version of Macrium to do this so long as you remember to boot the stand alone recovery media and do the "Fix Windows Boot problems" before attempting to boot the copied machine.

Cheers
jimbo

Hi there

@thomaseg1

I think you'll still need the "Fix windows boot problems"

I agree about Adobe -- I'm using the non subscription version of Photoshop - still perfectly fine for me - and the only way I could get it to work on a new machine was to restore from a Virtual Machine image -- perfect !!!!

Anyway if you do encounter boot problems you should know how to fix them !!!

Thanks for the rep !!!

Cheers
jimbo

thomaseg1 said:

Windows 10 activation: did it activate without help or
was ShowKey Plus needed to input the old key into the new system?

Restoring a Macrium image to new hardware will not transfer the license.

Do you have a Windows 10 key (i.e. did you buy it retail)? If so you can enter that key.

If showkey is showing your key as the generic Windows 10 Pro key VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T then entering this key will not work.

If your new hardware doesn't already have a digital license you should be able to link your digital license to your Microsoft Account and transfer it as described here Use Activation Troubleshooter in Windows 10

Hi there
If the machine already has or has had a digital license then restoring to new hardware does work in the manner I've described -- I've done this at least 5 or 6 times without issue.


Why or how the activation works I've no idea but Windows on every case I restored confirmed Machine activated with a digital license -- which in fact is OK as you can install Windows as many times as you like on a machine that's already licensed -- you don't even need to use the same iso image either if installing from an iso.

The caveats are here that the version of Windows must be the same e.g PRO->PRO or HOME->HOME.

If the target machine has not previously been activated then you are correct - you will need to get a license.
My images also were from full RETAIL W10 -- I haven't got any machines with an OEM W10 install so I can't comment on that process - I'd imagine activation though would fail in those instances.

Cheers
jimbo