Windows 10 copy

[iceepforgetin]

If I exported windows 10 off of an old laptop onto a flash drive, will it completely remove windows from that laptop? If so, will it delete everything on that laptop?

[Wolly9102]

1 minute ago, iceepforgetin said:

If I exported windows 10 off of an old laptop onto a flash drive, will it completely remove windows from that laptop? If so, will it delete everything on that laptop?

What do you mean by exporting Windows 10? You can't just copy paste an Windows installation from an computer. However you can create an clone of a installation from the settings.

 

 

https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-10/how-to-clone-a-hard-drive-in-windows-10/

[Eigenvektor]

Creating a clone of your installation will not remove it from the current machine. You can't just copy&paste or move the files in explorer, you'll need to use something like CloneZilla to clone the entire disk including files and partitions that aren't accessible/visible to your normal Windows user.

 

However, you Windows license is only valid for one machine, so technically only one of them will be genuine if you move the installation to another machine.

[LogicalDrm]

No and no. As said, you can't cut and paste OS. Your original PC will need OS to operate, it can't cut out itself (as it would seize to exist in the middle of process). Cloning the drive is a way, and you can also take whole drive out and put it to another PC. Neither of these would remove anything inside the drive. But if you remove whole drive, your laptop would need another drive to operate.

 

If you want to erase whole drive, thats done before OS has loaded or from another OS and then formatting whole drive or partition you want.