Cloning a 32 bit laptop Vista and converting to 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate?

[Santilli]

Hi
I have a new roommate that does software development. He's done a ton of work on a 32 bit Vista laptop for a medical company, and, needs to clone the drive, and install it in a desktop machine.

What cloning software would work, and, is there any way to move from
Vista 32 bit to Windows 7 64 bit?

I've tried the Windows 7 64 bit disk in the laptop, and it didn't work.

Also, this needs to happen fairly quickly...

 

[ddrueding]

The problem is not in the cloning software, it is in making sure the laptop already has the storage drivers for the desktop installed before you start. This can be a pretty challenging process, it is probably easier to install the OS/Apps from scratch on the desktop and move the data.

 

[time]

AFAIK, both Acronis and Paragon products support this kind of migration. Paragon calls it "driver injection". It asks for drivers as it needs them.

Paragon Drive Copy

If you click on 'Try Now', you can download the user manual and a trial version of the software.

This also raises the possibility of an alternative solution: virtualizing the existing environment and running it as a VM on the desktop. The linked software will also do that for you.

 

[Mercutio]

It is not possible to upgrade a 32-bit Windows system to a 64-bit Windows installation. The installer doesn't support it even if everything else does. You're essentially going to have to do a clean install of Windows 7 x64 and then migrate user profiles from one machine to another. Windows Easy Transfer allows the migration of most userland stuff, but you're probably SOL as far as software that's licensed on the Vista installation.

 

[time]

I didn't make myself clear. The software should allow you to move the existing Vista environment to a different PC (although you'll obviously need to activate it again or buy another Vista license). In no way will it support any kind of upgrade from one generation of Windows to another.

I viewed this from a developer's perspective. Greg's roommate has invested large amounts of time creating a specific development environment, which will doubtless require many hours to recreate on a fresh Windows installation. But then it's still Vista, so Greg wondered if a Windows 7 upgrade was possible at the same time. As Merc says, in that case it's better to start from scratch.

 

[Mercutio]

Proper dev environments put that stuff in .rc files where they belong!

 

[Santilli]

Thank you for the suggestions. Using the drive on a 64 bit OS, in VM was what I first thought of when the problem was brought to me.

Since my experience with VM's has been on equipment not really server designed, drivers were a problem, for the simplest of things:
USB, DVD drives, etc.

I'll have a better look at Paragon, and see how this plays out.

Time is right, in that the person in question has lots of work in on that platform, installing and setting up certain programs and software, and, that time is something he doesn't want to loose, as he jumps into 3 new projects.

 

[Santilli]

Apparently the projects require the use of 64 bit Exchange Server.

Screwy as this may sound: Is it possible to run a 64 bit OS on VMWare, when the host machine is 32 bit?

I ran 64 bit XP on my machine, but, it's got 7 Ultimate 64 bit as a base.

 

[timwhit]

Screwy as this may sound: Is it possible to run a 64 bit OS on VMWare, when the host machine is 32 bit?

This is not possible. If the guest is 64 bit then the host must be 64 bit also.

 

[Howell]

What? You so crazy!

http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#intro-64bitguests

 

[Howell]

Oops. Cinco de Mayo error.

 

[Santilli]

Apparently the plan is to use Zamanda as a backup system, and use Virtual servers, on one main machine.

http://www.zmanda.com/vmware-backup.html?gclid=CJbpic7E0qgCFQwFbAoddiUGiA

Reminds me of David's stuff.

 

[Mercutio]

Newer versions of Exchange are 64 bit only. Exchange is also incredibly disk intensive for anything but the most trivial installations. I'm sure that if you throw enough hardware at it, it'll work fine in a VM, but it's a very different thing from running an XP guest under Windows 7 so some 15 year old Visual Basic app can run.

 

[ddrueding]

Agreed. Last time I worked on one, it had more disk IO after sitting idle for hours than my workstation while I was using it.

 

[Howell]

Exchange with very little data in it should not be that disk intensive. Not that I have tested the scenario.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks. The data involved is MASSIVE. If it's not bullshit, it's one of the biggest companies in Kalifornia, and, their document management.

So far, I have nothing to indicate that this isn't a scam, but, it might be I'm just super skeptical, after my last room....ass.

To be real, the contracts so far shown, and email addresses etc. offered as proof, could be an elaborate scam by a semi-literate computer person.

Jury is waiting for financial proof of anything right now...