Solved Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical computers

I have a question for those who are experienced in performing numerous vista installations. I have 2 identical laptops as far as hardware goes, each with its own COA sticker (that is obviously different). I just did a clean install of Vista 64 on one of them from the digital river SP1 files available. As you know, there are several hundred updates to Windows since then, and these take many hours to download and install. I am trying to avoid some of that in the future. What I am wondering is this: If I want to do a clean install on the second machine as well, can I simply create a disk image of the first clean install machine (with Windows totally updated), clone this to the second machine, and then re-activate Windows in the second machine by changing to its COA in Windows? This would save a lot of time by not having to download and install all the hundreds of updates. If that will work, I would like to keep the clean updated disk image for re-installations of both machines so I can use that as a starting point instead of starting from SP1. Thanks for your insight.

Re: Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical compute

Yes, that will work. Or you could mount the drive from teh 2nd computer as a slave in the 1st and do a direct clone using Macrium Reflect Free.

Re: Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical compute

Ztruker said:

Yes, that will work. Or you could mount the drive from teh 2nd computer as a slave in the 1st and do a direct clone using Macrium Reflect Free.

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OK, that sounds great and will save me at least a day's work. Since the hardware is the same, all drivers, etc. are identical, so I won't have to reload them and update them either. Thanks.

Re: Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical compute

spacecon said:

I have a question for those who are experienced in performing numerous vista installations. I have 2 identical laptops as far as hardware goes, each with its own COA sticker (that is obviously different). I just did a clean install of Vista 64 on one of them from the digital river SP1 files available. As you know, there are several hundred updates to Windows since then, and these take many hours to download and install. I am trying to avoid some of that in the future. What I am wondering is this: If I want to do a clean install on the second machine as well, can I simply create a disk image of the first clean install machine (with Windows totally updated), clone this to the second machine, and then re-activate Windows in the second machine by changing to its COA in Windows? This would save a lot of time by not having to download and install all the hundreds of updates. If that will work, I would like to keep the clean updated disk image for re-installations of both machines so I can use that as a starting point instead of starting from SP1. Thanks for your insight.

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For licensing issues you should avoid doing that.

Re: Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical compute

townsbg: You are saying I will run into problems? I was assuming that if I used the same disk image, but then went into control panel system, and there clicked on "change the product key", and then entered the correct product key from the COA on the machine, that Windows should recognize that and re-activate with the correct product key. Are you saying this won't work? Thanks.

Re: Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical compute

No, you will not run into problems. You have two keys and will activate the 2nd computer with its own key.

Re: Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical compute

Thanks ztruker. That is certainly what I am going to try. If successful it will save me many hours. I will repost to give the results of this once everything is all complete and activated.

Re: Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical compute

I took my time getting the second computer imaged identical to the first, as I wanted to make sure I had all my backups in place and organized. I ended up using Macrium Reflect to do an image and restored that to the second (identical Vista machine). Everything worked quite well. I did not do a clone as these are laptops with a single hard drive and I did not have my external enclosure handy for the second drive. I did some research to determine which software to use. I already had a paid version of Acronis, but it was single license which is too restrictive. Just moving the image to the new drive would have violated that since both would have had Acronis on them. I think a single license for backup is absurd. I don't think I will use Acronis anymore, as it also puts a lot of nonsense on the machine like things in the context menu and something called "continuous backup" which I don't want and therefore haven't taken the time to understand. I like Macrium much better. I also had previously used Todo, but they have changed what is allowed with the free version now. I am not sure, but I don't think you can browse the backup any more. I also had a commercial version from Farstone but it did not work. I contacted their customer service and they told me it would only work with a computer using Microsoft IE8, so I should back up my IE version to 8 or buy their new version of software. Well that is real nice when you "think" you have a backup ready (what? the backup software is dependent on which version web browser you have installed?, no thanks). I quickly decided that was of no use. I personally feel that the home versions of paid backup software should allow any number of users. I don't have a problem paying for the software, but I don't want it to start asking for license info when I need it to work and I am having restore problems. For home you don't need too many users, but the last thing you need is to worry about licensing when you have had a system crash. And I don't like having to keep track of the licenses for something you might not need to use to restore for quite some time. Macrium looks like a very good program and being free (the version I used anyway), the licensing issues are very few. Anyway, using the same disk image for identical hardware (with all Windows updates intact, all drivers, etc.) worked out great. I just entered the correct COA key into the second computer that I copied the image to and Windows had no problem. I actually had more problem with the first, but nothing big. I had to do the robocall thing to activate with its COA, but no problem. Thanks for the help. I updated my HP Vista32 install to a clean Vista64 and without all the bloat it appears to be running much faster. Plus with the 64 bit I can hopefully add a little more memory as well. Special thanks to Ztruker.

Re: Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical compute

Thanks for sharing. I know that many here recommend macrium.

spacecon said:

I also had a commercial version from Farstone but it did not work. I contacted their customer service and they told me it would only work with a computer using Microsoft IE8, so I should back up my IE version to 8 or buy their new version of software. Well that is real nice when you "think" you have a backup ready (what? the backup software is dependent on which version web browser you have installed?, no thanks).

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Interesting. With any other browser I would agree with that statement however IE is so deeply embedded into the API that this is very possible. If it isn't backed up/restored correctly you can have major issues. That is why it is pretty much impossible to remove or downgrade it without risking damage to the OS. Not knowing that software I can't make any comments about it.

Criticism of Microsoft Windows - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re: Question on trying to save time performing a clean install on 2 identical compute

That's good news, many thanks for the update.

I use Acronis mainly because I've always used it and am familiar with it. Macrium is an excellent alternative that I use at the shop and on other peoples computers when working on them.