Do you want to transfer your Windows installation to new hardware? There are many reasons why you may want to do that, from having an old or slow computer to needing more space. Fortunately, you can easily transfer your Windows installation with c’t-WIMage, a backup script that copies your entire Windows installation, including your personal files, applications, and settings, as well as any NTFS peculiarities like access rights and file encryption.
The best part? With c’t-WIMage, you don’t need to install the old and new data medium in the PC at the same time or network the two computers. All you need is a sufficiently large USB data carrier, which you can set up with just a few mouse clicks according to the instructions in this article. The USB will be bootable and contain c’t-WIMage, making it the perfect target for backing up your Windows installation.
Once you’ve backed up your installation, you can replace your hardware as planned and restore the backup from the USB data carrier to the new one. c’t-WIMage will recreate both the partitioning of the source data medium and the boot loader when restoring, to match the target hardware. In other words, you can use c’t-WIMage to move your installation to virtually any other PC!
If you’re planning on getting a new PC, we recommend securing the pre-installation first, then moving it over. This will save you time and hassle in the long run. You can read more about this in the c’t 16/2023 article.
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