[GTALUG] moving Win8.1 with Bing out of the way

Bob Jonkman bjonkman at sobac.com
Sun Apr 12 18:25:54 UTC 2015


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D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:
>> Does anyone know how to migrate Windows?

I've successfully used Microsoft's Disk2VHD tool to create a virtual
disk image from a Windows 7 partition.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx

Giles Orr wrote:
> Windows is very fragile about being moved.
[...]
> I suspect that the second you boot the external version of
> Windows, it will write breaking changes to itself and never be
> usable again.

I used the virtual Win7 machine in VirtualBox a few times, but when I
tried to run Windows Update it told me that the hardware had changed
and I was running an unlicensed copy. It still runs, but with a nag
message every so often. Technically, it is still running on the same
hardware, just with an additional layer of abstraction.  Oh well.

I still have the orginal .VHD file, so I can fire up an old Win7 image
if I ever need to check something out, but that hardly ever happens.

- --Bob.


Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com>          Phone: +1-519-669-0388
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On 12/04/15 11:47 AM, Giles Orr wrote:
> On 12 April 2015 at 00:46, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> 
> wrote:
>> I bought a cute little box (a weakness of mine): an HP Stream 
>> Mini. It comes with Win8.1 with Bing x64 on its "HDD", a 32G M.2 
>> SSD.  Note that it is x64: not one of these Atoms with a
>> crippled 32-bit UEFI.
>> 
>> Fedora 21 runs fine off a live USB stick.
>> 
>> The SSD is a fine size for Linux, but not a fine size for Win8.1
>> + Linux. So I intend to evict Windows from the SSD.  But I feel
>> that I need to keep Win8.1 bootable - I paid for it (a lame
>> reason) - I will likely need Win8.1 to do firmware updates - it
>> might be worth playing with for some purposes
>> 
>> I'd like to migrate Win8.1 to a USB3 device.  I just bought a
>> 64G usb stick which might be perfect ($19.99 at NCIX this
>> weekend).  Or more likely, a 2.5" external HDD.
>> 
>> Does anyone know how to migrate Windows?
>> 
>> Googling finds lots of moderately crappy postings about how to 
>> move Windows to an SSD but I cannot tell if they assume that
>> some vital essence is left on the original drive.  (I actually
>> wish to move the opposite way; that ought not to be a problem.)
>> 
>> I've found Windows quite fragile, possibly due to piracy 
>> prevention things.  It also seems to want to own booting and on 
>> UEFI / Secure Boot systems this gets downright magical (i.e.  I 
>> don't understand it)
>> 
>> All seem to take proprietary non-Microsoft software -- one fears
>> a bait-and-switch.  (I bet some of the bootable ones are based on
>>  Linux.)
>> 
>> I can experiment, but I thought I'd ask here first.
> 
> It's been a long time since I mucked with this (Windows 7, but 
> several years ago), but my experience agrees with yours: Windows
> is very fragile about being moved.  I'd suggest that if you want
> to attempt to boot Windows from an external media that you also
> make a pristine image of the original HD and set that aside.  I
> suspect that the second you boot the external version of Windows,
> it will write breaking changes to itself and never be usable again.
> I think the only way you're going to successfully boot Windows on
> it again is to wipe Linux from the original drive, and re-image it
> from your original clean copy.  I may be being overly pessimistic,
> but I've had very poor luck working with Windows on anything that
> wasn't its own original hardware after its been installed.  Best of
> luck.
> 
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