Microsoft KB Archive Search

Notice: This website is an unofficial Microsoft Knowledge Base (hereinafter KB) archive and is intended to provide a reliable access to deleted content from Microsoft KB. All KB articles are owned by Microsoft Corporation. Read full disclaimer for more details.

  1. Home
  2. Support for booting Windows on hardware that it was not originally installed on

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

View products that this article applies to.

Summary

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

↑ Back to the top

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

↑ Back to the top

Keywords: kb

↑ Back to the top

Article Info
Article ID : 3203546
Revision : 26
Created on : 4/15/2020
Published on : 5/28/2020
Exists online : False
Views : 598