Cisco- Voice Engineer here, definately a novice with Windows. :) Personal PC has 32 bit Win7 Pro and Ive been doing disc image backups monthly on my personal PC. I'm about to purchase a Win8 Pro 64 bit PC and wanted to double check that I'd be able to take that existing disc image and move it over to the new PC.

Does the Windows Easy Transfer utility apply here? Done via disc image or some other method?

Thanks in advance everyone!!!

please make sure all software that you want to installed and 3rd party hardware (driver and compatibility) compatible with Windows 8, download Windows 8 upgrade assistance or check at compatibility center. Running Windows 8 VM or installed Windows 8 at separate drive to test will be great

my personal opinion, the best way is clean install

if this PC OEM I suggest you contact OC manufactured, they also have correct document for this upgrade, you also need to create recovery media backup before perform upgrade just in case you want to revert back to Windows 7

regarding backup data, I suggest do manually, I don't trust any backup software :) 

• Edited by britishdhez 4 hours 55 minutes ago

please make sure all software that you want to installed and 3rd party hardware (driver and compatibility) compatible with Windows 8, download Windows 8 upgrade assistance or check at compatibility center. Running Windows 8 VM or installed Windows 8 at separate drive to test will be great

my personal opinion, the best way is clean install

if this PC OEM I suggest you contact OC manufactured, they also have correct document for this upgrade, you also need to create recovery media backup before perform upgrade just in case you want to revert back to Windows 7

regarding backup data, I suggest do manually, I don't trust any backup software :) 

• Edited by britishdhez Thursday, April 16, 2015 2:25 AM

please make sure all software that you want to installed and 3rd party hardware (driver and compatibility) compatible with Windows 8, download Windows 8 upgrade assistance or check at compatibility center. Running Windows 8 VM or installed Windows 8 at separate drive to test will be great

my personal opinion, the best way is clean install

if this PC OEM I suggest you contact OC manufactured, they also have correct document for this upgrade, you also need to create recovery media backup before perform upgrade just in case you want to revert back to Windows 7

regarding backup data, I suggest do manually, I don't trust any backup software :) 

• Edited by britishdhez Thursday, April 16, 2015 2:25 AM

Hi Surferdj,

According to your description, I am afraid that disc image backup wont help you in this case at all. Full disk image you made including your Windows 7 system image so if you recover from it to hard disk, it might wipe out your whole hard disk and make it back to Windows 7, and I dont think it is what you want.

You should upgrade to Windows 8 from Windows 7 so system will keep all settings and user profile, it actually do almost same job as Easy Transfer. However please note that, it cannot make sure all program you have could work properly after upgrade. As what mentioned by britishdhez, you might need to check if your software is compatible with Windows 8 and reinstall some software after upgrade to Windows 8.

Regards,

Wow, didn't think of that. Need same OS across old and new laptop to use the contents of the disc image. Good point. Are you saying to upgrade the existing laptop to windows 8, then make disc image and more Wins 8 image to new wins 8 laptop?

Thing is this laptop is 10 years old, not worth the trouble. Hows this, I am purchasing the laoptop with Wins 7 downgrade right. Can I downgrade the new laptop, move the disc image from old laptop onto it then on the new laptop upgrade to Wins 8?

Hi Surferdj,

In principle, there should be no problem that doing a recovery from your disk image backup if you have larger hard disk. But we recommend performing a clean install on new hard disk, your new laptop might come with an OEM license which is only could activate an OEM Windows system, so if you decide doing an upgrade, there might be activation issues.

Regards

D. Wu