Move Windows 11 Pro

I have a windows 11 Pro sitting on an I9 machine. I would like to clone my I9 machine to my I7 machine. Can this be done?

Is the i-7 machine licensed for Pro? Is the i-7 hardware 100% compatible with Windows 11?

Retail license or OEM ? (dunno why I ask this, just as a warning probably. Theses days, MS don't give a toss in most cases)

What's on the i7 now, anyway ? What's going on the i9 in its place ?

Image > restore, don't clone. (Much easier when drives are already installed in each device)
Macrium Reflect

Why ask, where's the harm in just trying it, anyway?

timlab55 said:

I have a windows 11 Pro sitting on an I9 machine. I would like to clone my I9 machine to my I7 machine. Can this be done?

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Yes. How is that for the simple answer?

Then if both those requirements are met, yes. I agree with idgat. Imaging is better option than cloning. You may have to manually activate on the i7 machine.

Actually, good question about what is on the I7 now. The answer is really nothing. But in case my I9 goes down for any reason which happen a week ago, I would like to power on the I7 and continue marching. But I have two MS Keys, one is for the I9 and one is for the I7. So I guess what I have to do is strip the I7 down to nothing and rebuild it again. Once I have Windows 11 Pro installed, then the fun starts about me sending everything over to the I7 from the I9. Good plan?

timlab55 said:

Good plan?

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Sure, that will work if you want to rebuild everything. But since you have 2 keys, restoring an image of the i9 to the i7 and then manually changing the key to activate Windows should work as well. You might possibly have to reinstall the graphics driver on the i7 afterwards, but usually Windows will detect it, especially in later model machines. The only place I can see there might be a problem is with any software licenses you might have on the i9. Some purchased softwares' licenses are allowed on only one machine. If a software phones home it will detect that the software is on 2 machines at the same time and will squawk about it.

Windows 11 is very versatile.

I just made a backup image file of my C: drive on one desktop PC, and walked it down the hall to my my second desktop PC and did a restore, and the second PC is now running a mirror image of my first PC. All I had to do was some updates to my email program and install a driver for my printer. No big deal. Windows 11 itself didn't mind at all.
But that's me....Your own results may differ. I'm not tied by the apron strings to Microsoft.

The two PC's I used here in this example, both have Gigabyte motherboards of different models and age, and use AMD CPU's of different models, but the same age. (one CPU is an 8 core, while the other is a 6 core)
Windows 11 just didn't seem to care!

Restoring the image of the i9 to the i7 should work without any problems. I would suggest backing up the drivers on the i7 to an external drive first.

First.... if the i7 system is already activated with Windows 10, then it will activate with 11 no issue. Been there done that. The only caveat is the OS be the same flavor - Home to Home, Pro to Pro.

timlab55 said:

I would like to clone my I9 machine to my I7 machine. Can this be done?

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Yes. Been there done that. In fact, I cloned my backup i7 Win 10 system, then upgraded that drive to Windows 11 (insiders).

timlab55 said:

But I have two MS Keys, one is for the I9 and one is for the I7. So I guess what I have to do is strip the I7 down to nothing and rebuild it again. Once I have Windows 11 Pro installed, then the fun starts about me sending everything over to the I7 from the I9. Good plan?

Click to expand...

You don't need to stripe anything down unless you're looking clean install. Simply clone, image, or upgrade the machine.

If you clone or image, you'll most likely have to update the drivers for the i7 system since both use different hardware.

You can also upgrade the i7 system to Windows 11 thus precluding any cloning or imaging... unless of course you require the same programs and files from the i9 system to the i7 system.

Question above relating to what's on the i7 and the i9 was in reference to the OS version(s) AND their respective license(s). In the true sprit of the EULA, officially, you should have 2 licenses.

EDIT As @TechnoMage2021 says, Windows 11 (and 10, for that matter) are very forgiving when being swapped between devices. Windows will automatically update the drivers. Then, if you've a mind to, you can use the Device Manager to remove/uninstall the superfluous drivers from the previous device
Device Manager > View > Show hidden devices > the "old" drivers will be grayed out. Expand each category > right click on grayed out entry > Uninstall device.

I would backup my data, just in case, and then disconnect the disk from i9 and connect to i7 to test compatibility. If it works OK (most likely), I would then either clean install Windows 11 on i7 or clone the original disk to spare me the trouble of reinstalling and reconfiguring everything from start. I would then activate Windows and any other application necessary on i7 and that't it. If you have already activated Windows 10 or 11 of the same type (Home or Pro) in i7, it should have a digital license and activate 11 automatically in either a clean installation or clone.

PS: For cloning to work i7 should be configured to boot the same (UEFI or CSM) as i9 or set to both.

OKay, I think I'll try it later on and see how it goes. This should be fun, as I've never done it. Thanks for the info.