Cloning a windows 32 bit OS

Kurgen

Kurgen

Kurgen

Soldato
Joined
10 Apr 2015
Posts
4,263
Location
Hungerford, UK, Earth
My Dad has a couple of aging pcs that are running windows 7 32bit. he has some legacy architectural software thats pretty good and still does the job required. There isnt a newer or replacement it cant be installed on any 64 bit OS or Windows 10. He wont want the hastle of a virtual PC.. anyway one of these PCs is on its last legs. its socket AM3... Would i be able to clone the boot drive (which is a 256gb ssd) and install the cloned drive in a skylake system which is the last windows 7 support system.

just to add the cost for a skylake system is quite minimal outlay, would just need the parts below and a 2nd hand i3 or i5 which are between £60 & £85

i have PSU, Case, GPU & SSD all spare

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £96.48 (includes shipping: £10.50)
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No reason why not. The ReDeploy feature in Macrium Reflect would help with moving to different hardware if you run into problems.

I would virtualise them. There’s no ‘hassle’ involved. I’d consider it a neater option than having legacy boxes hanging around.
 
they wont want 2 different desktops.. i wont win that one ive been there. I have warned my Dad and his colleague there will be a point i cant do anything. or cant rebuild... then their hand will be forced. at least with this the only thing wasted is a cheap motherboard and a cheap CPU which will still be miles faster than this AM3 relic. My Dad has already had RAM issues on larges files due to 4gb (or 3.5gb) limit, i have also warned him there will be no more update in 2020 and Office365 may stop working as well
 
If he's a got a legacy app like this then there's justification for keeping Windows 7 running to support it. After Windows 7 support ends there's no justification for using it for more general usage, especially anything that requires it to be connected to the internet.

They need to be virtualising or using two different computers.
 
ive just remembered i have an x58 system doing nothing, i could try this as a test.. its old but still no slouch
 
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