dumb noob question

[Fosh612]

Can I transfer and install my OS from my laptop onto another computer?

[Linksys120n]

short answer, yes. But it's messy.

[Fosh612]

ooohhh okay! So I don't need to spend 120 dollars on windows?

[kirashi]

Just now, Fosh612 said:

ooohhh okay! So I don't need to spend 120 dollars on windows?

Did Windows come with your laptop when you purchased it? If so, yes, you will have to buy a retail copy of Windows for your (what I assume is) a newly built customer desktop PC. This is because copies of Windows that come pre-installed by the manufacturer are OEM, which stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, and are technically licensed for use on the original equipment from the manufacturer.

[Fosh612]

My laptop has windows installed when I got it. Yes.

and I will be installing windows onto that.

[LogicalDrm]

6 hours ago, Fosh612 said:

My laptop has windows installed when I got it. Yes.

and I will be installing windows onto that.

It might not work. There are bit confilcting info about this where it may or may not work. Fact remains that laptop will be out of OS as you can have only single activated Windows per key.

[Fosh612]

Okay.

 

[homeap5]

On 25.08.2018 at 3:24 AM, Fosh612 said:

Can I transfer and install my OS from my laptop onto another computer?

It's not dumb noob question, but really interesting one. Everyone can buy laptop with or without preinstalled system. These with preinstalled system are more expensive, so in fact you pay for that system, it's not "free meal". You're asking about "transfer and install" - two different things in fact. You can transfer your system (by moving your hdd into desktop or by cloning your hdd into another drive and move in desktop) or you can made fresh install (which is not a transfer, it's new installation). In both cases problem is similar - you must have serial key extracted from your laptop's BIOS (there are serveral programs that can do that) and you must have your account linked with Microsoft Account, because laptops using OEM licences. If you have both (serial and linked account), then it may work. It's not some kind of refurbished Windows that is allowed to sell only with hardware, it's your system that you paid for. You bought it with laptop - that's right, but it's still software you paid for, it's configured by you, you can even download new version from Microsoft and install on your laptop, so I don't really think that you cannot transfer it to another computer.