Where does system reside on hard drive? In C: or Recovery? Want to copy PC to PC without copying system.

[unn]

Hello, I need to copy from laptop1 (Windows 10) to another laptop2 (Windows 10). The laptop2 is different brand so the system is likely to have different drivers etc. So, I want to copy everything from 1 to 2 except the Windows but want to copy all the programs/ apps on 1 along with their settings. How?

Laptop1 has 500GB SSD.

Laptop1: When I open "Macrium Reflect" it shows the following: Partition 1. system- NTFS 619MB/619MB, 2. No name- Fat 32 50MB, 3. None- Primary 8.1MB, 4. C: - primary 250GB/436GB, 5. Recovery- 9GB.

When I open the "Windows Disk Management" it shows only the following: Partition 1. 1GB/1GB, 2. 100MB/100MB, 5. 9.92GB/9.92GB, C: 186.41GB/435.98GB

Macrium Reflect gives me the option of "create image of each partition". When I select C, it gives option of creating image of "this partition only".

So, is Windows 10 part of the the Partition C?

How do I copy every thing except the Windows? Thanks for the help.

 

[Bighorn]

I would think the desired action won't fully work, if not copying the System [Windows Folder], you won't get the Registry and Windows-based programs usually won't work, will need to be installed on the new computer. The Registry, 5 Hives or text files, tells Windows how to do things and Windows-based programs need to be installed so as to get support files in the right place, icons put on the Start menu and entries made in the Registry. It's possible to manually make some programs run but there will be complaints about missing files which can be copied from the other computer as long as it is running, one at a time. Quite a daunting task.

I don't use Macrium Reflect to do it so can't answer how involved that would be.

 

[BigFeet]

It's not a practical thing to even attempt. I've had limited success pulling a hard drive out of one PC and putting it in another, and having Windows "repair" itself. Even that isn't practical, and no guarantee to even work. It's way easier to save your data, and start from scratch.