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Support for booting Windows on hardware that it was not originally installed on

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Summary

This article describes the Microsoft support policy for booting the Windows operating system on hardware that it was not originally installed on.

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More Information

Microsoft does not support booting Windows on hardware that it was not originally installed on. For example, the following situations are unsupported:
  • Removing the boot drives from one computer and putting them into another computer.
  • Using cloning software to replicate the Windows OS from one drive to another and then booting the replicated drive from inside a different computer.
There are exceptions to this policy:
  • Windows operating systems that are run as virtual machines (VMs). These can be exported from one computer to another when they're running on the same hypervisor.
  • When Sysprep is run to prepare a Windows OS for new hardware. 
  • When a Windows OS is configured to run as Windows To Go.
For more information about the technologies that are discussed in this article, see the following:

Support for booting from a Storage Area Network (SAN)
Sysprep process overview
Windows To Go: feature overview

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Keywords: kb

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Article Info
Article ID : 3203546
Revision : 26
Created on : 4/15/2020
Published on : 5/28/2020
Exists online : False
Views : 571