Swapping Windows 7 and 8

Not a person

I am thinking of buying a new laptop, which will have Windows 8.

My current laptop has windows 7...

I would prefer Win 7 on my new laptop,, can I swap the licenses and put Windows 8 on the old Laptop before I sell it??

I am thinking no because current win 7 will be OEM?

Fysh

Not a person wrote: »

I am thinking of buying a new laptop, which will have Windows 8.

My current laptop has windows 7...

I would prefer Win 7 on my new laptop,, can I swap the licenses and put Windows 8 on the old Laptop before I sell it??

I am thinking no because current win 7 will be OEM?

The Windows 8 licence on any new machine will be OEM-licenced, which means it's tethered to the motherboard. More importantly, the licence key is likely to be embedded in the motherboard too, rather than printed on a CoA on the underside of the machine.

Which effectively means you cannot move your Windows 8 licence to a different machine.

However, if you buy a machine with Windows 8 Pro, you will have legitimate downgrade rights which allow you to replace Windows 8 with Windows 7 using your existing Windows 7 media (or a downloaded legal ISO of the software). You can reinstall Windows 8 at a later date if you decide to make the change as well.

Not a person

I have ordered my laptop in the end. Is there an easy way of transferring software,browser bookmarks etc?

I have dropbox for my important files so I can sync that easy enough.

I`m guessing the software is not possible, but how about browser bookmarks? Would be a pain to transfer them again. Using chrome mostly (heard windows 8 doesn`t like it), and Firefox.

Fysh

Not a person wrote: »

I have ordered my laptop in the end. Is there an easy way of transferring software,browser bookmarks etc?

I have dropbox for my important files so I can sync that easy enough.

I`m guessing the software is not possible, but how about browser bookmarks? Would be a pain to transfer them again. Using chrome mostly (heard windows 8 doesn`t like it), and Firefox.

Windows Easy Transfer is what you want.

However, I've always found it to be hopeless with things like Firefox bookmarks, etc. Your options thus are to either export your bookmarks within Firefox/Chrome on your old PC or to go into C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox and copy that directory (the equivalent for Chrome is C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data). Once you've installed everything on the new machine, paste the folders into the equivalent location in Windows 8.

Torqay

Not a person wrote: »

how about browser bookmarks? Would be a pain to transfer them again. Using chrome mostly (heard windows 8 doesn`t like it), and Firefox.

Just export your bookmarks to HTML.

Chrome: Bookmark Manager > Organize > Export...

Firefox: Bookmarks > Show all Bookmarks > Import and Backup > Export...

Then import them on the new laptop.

For Firefox, you can use MozBackup, this will not only cover your bookmarks but your complete profile including extensions, history and passwords.

Not a person

Thanks

I'm also planning on moving my ssd from my current small laptop to my new laptop.. Can you recommend any disk cloning software? To clone the new laptop`s windows to the ssd..

The ssd came with norton ghost but I had difficulties with that and did a clean install instead.(when installing windows to the ssd on my current laptop! - apologies if confusing.. I'm confused too )

The new laptop comes with recovery partitions.. Can I clone everything at once? Any insight appreciated

Torqay

Not a person wrote: »

The new laptop comes with recovery partitions.. Can I clone everything at once?

You can but ou may loose a lot of disk space, a notoriously scarce commodity on SSDs. Create your recovery discs (just in case) and install the OS afresh on the SSD.