Windows 10: Swapping Disks Between Two Computers

For various weird reasons I have the need to swap the hard drives (SSD) between two similar Thinkpads. They are architecturally similar so I'm reasonably sure that after a few routine automatic driver updates both will run fine.

Of course, at that point both will presumably report as non-activated. And ditto for the Microsoft Office activation.

Both are activated with "digital entitlements" or however it's phrased now.

Having not faced the issue before: is this a resolvable situation or am I doomed?

Art

:)

 

Bitlocker is a disaster...

Swapping it back and forth between two different operating systems is only asking for trouble.

Also, using Windows 10 Home which doesn't support creating Bitlocker disks isn't going to get you very far either.

I'd recommend upgrading to Windows 10 Pro, and not swap it back and forth between a Windows 7 system.

 

Swapping reserved Win10 upgrades between computers

Hello,

I have Windows 8.1 Pro on my laptop and Windows 7 Home Premium on my desktop. Neither are OEM. The laptop has since been upgraded to and is running Windows 10 Pro. The desktop remains on Windows 7 (waiting for upgrade notice). The desktop will only upgrade
to Windows 10 Home and what I would like to do is to swap the laptop's Windows 10 Pro to the desktop and put the desktop's reserved Windows 10 Home on the laptop.

Both Windows 10 versions are reserved upgrades. The installed laptop Pro version is linked to my Microsoft outlook.com account. The Windows 7 reservation was reserved via my hotmail, which is essentially the same account as my outlook.com account anyway,
right? Are both licences linked to the same "microsoft account"?

In theory I should be able to install Win10 Pro on the desktop via a pro version ISO, skip initial product key entry, then log in with my outlook.com account to activate it. Then I can install Windows 10 Home on the laptop via a home version ISO, and log
in with the hotmail (?? or the outlook also??) to activate that. Will that work? I understand there are no product keys with these reserved upgrades. They would make it easier to understand the reservation licensing :/

What's the best way to go about this?

 

If each has it's own digital licence they will be updated after the swap, the "new" SSD has no effect on the acquisition of that notebook's digital licence.

 

Provided, that is, that both have digital licences for the same version of Windows - Pro and Pro, or Home and Home.

 

I do the same - swapping from VM to real hardware and back (both have separate digital entitlement). Windows Activation is perfectly fine but my Microsoft Account needs to be re-verified every switch (they send a code by SMS).

Don't know about Office as I don't have it installed there but it tends to be a bit more picky in my experience.

 

Yup, I meant that by implication... *Wink

Yup, Office will need to be re-activated again on the "new" hardware - it's far more picky, as you say. (well, at least phone activation still works with it, so that's a good thing)

 

Well, it seems one of them is Pro and the other Home, and I have no bloody idea how I ended up with an installation of Home.

I'll bore everyone with the background to the enquiry: The Home machine is one I gave to a relative a few years ago. It was sent back to me in July so I could update it with Windows 10, which I did and sent the machine back cross-country. Last week I was contacted and told that the machine had totally died - no boot, no lights, etc. The local community help volunteer at that person's public library couldn't get it to work either. So I volunteered to swap the machine with one of my own - thus the disk swap to avoid reinstalling programs, fine-tuning, etc., etc.

It arrived by FedEx yesterday. I plugged it in, and it booted up just fine. The battery was totally drained. I suspect the cord wasn't securely pushed into the power brick - the Thinkpad two-wire guys don't hold very well, whereas the three-wire connections are normally secure.

Nevertheless, I'm inclined to swap machines - meaning disks - because the "failing" machine is actually a smidge better than the potential trade, and the relative doesn't need the better machine. (R61 vs. T61 if you speak Thinkpad). And if there really is a problem, and it's intermittant, I don't really care as I have a bunch of good Thinkpads.

So that's the strange story, and if the fact that one is (inexplicably) Home and the other Pro is a show-stopper, then I'm somewhat stuck.

Art

 

OK, if anyone cares: to my surprise, I came home this afternoon and the "bad" machine was stone dead, just as claimed. So we do have an intermittent issue. Using a trick I know with the power button, I coaxed it back to life. Clearly this wouldn't be a acceptable to the highly-nontechnical owner, so I went ahead and swapped the discs. Sure enough, both needed activation.

On the replacement machine that's going back to the sender, I was actually able to activate by going to the activation troubleshooter and reporting a significant hardware change. So the problem is solved. Because this is only 32 bit Windows Home, I'll downsize the 4 Gits memory to 3 Gigs and upsize the 3 Gigs of my now-owned bad machine to 4 Gigs.

Unfortunately, the bad machine won't activate because Windows detected the Home digital entitlement and won't allow the Pro OS to activate. I'll see if I have some spare 7 or 8.1 keys lying around. As I don't really need the machine, there's no urgency. EDIT FOLLOWUP: And that worked. Both machines are fine.

Art