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Windows 8 Drive Swap Works


DosProbie

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Is it just my good luck or has anyone noticed that when you take a Windows 8 drive off of one computer and put it into another as the main boot drive that it will finalize setup and read drivers etc. then boot into Windows? I know whenever I tried to do this with Windows 7 I would always get the BSOD but so far not with Windows 8. This may have been posted before but could not find any documentation on this..

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Are you talking of "direct connection" or USB connected extenal disks?

I am presuming "direct connection", i.e. you connect the disk as first disk through IDE/PATA or SATA.

Most probably it is a (nice) side effect of the "Windows to go" new feature:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_To_Go

(though Windows to go is fully implemented only on the Enterprise edition) :unsure:

jaclaz

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i did the same the other week and was amazed by the result - it just worked - it was between 2 laptops - not remotely the same spec - all it asked was for me to activate the version in the new laptop - i did now want to do that as i was not wanting a long term swap so cannot confirm that bit worked

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Yep worked with direct connection and also with 2 laptops One HP with Amd proc and the other Toshiba with Intel and it booted right

to desktop, (non activated but could have easily activated if I wanted to) With all drivers installed, just was trying to figure was this a MS Plan or goof?

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Yep worked with direct connection and also with 2 laptops One HP with Amd proc and the other Toshiba with Intel and it booted right

to desktop, (non activated but could have easily activated if I wanted to) With all drivers installed, just was trying to figure was this a MS Plan or goof?

I think, as said, that it is a "side effect".

To provide the "Windows to go" feature to the Enterprise customers they had to implement, besides good USB support for booting (which BTW has already been achieved by third parties) also something like a "mixed mode" between "SystemSetupInProgress" 0 and 1, something like that was already made at the time of Longhorn.

This modification neededly affects the whole "architecture". :unsure:

If you think about it there was a BIG change between the old two different loaders (SETUPLDR.BIN and NTLDR), different for install or setup and for "Installed System" and the "unified/unique" BOOTMGR.

If I am guessing right, when it comes to hardware drivers, the setup is "always in process", or, if you prefer, the system is EITHER in a permanent "generalized" state and it is "re-specialized" at each boot (I doubt about this) OR (IMHO more probable) when a hardware change is detected it "triggers" it into a "generalized" state.

To understand the above use of "generalized" or "specialized", you might need to be familiar with the Sysprep approach (online or offline), see:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showforum=43

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22064

And still, I believe that when you do that, with an already activated Windows 8 you will most likely need to re-activate it, and this may or may not be possible based on the License of the actual version you are using.

Additionally, and most probably, this is going to work for a limited period of time, in the sense that as soon as new hardware (needing new drivers NOT already included in Windows 8) will be used, we will be back to 0x000000xy STOP ERRORS and BSOD's (unless the drivers will be slipstreamed, adding more bloat to the already bloated install).

jaclaz

Edited by jaclaz
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