How to DITTO copy WinXP from desktop to Laptop

M

MenTaLLyMenTaL

Disciple
Hey all.

My desktop which i use the most has WinXP with lots of softwares installed.
I have a laptop for use in college which has Win7 which came with it (Acer).
I have a partition on the laptop (D:) empty specifically made for another OS. I want to install WinXP on it. But not just install it, I want it to be an exact copy of my desktop's XP. i.e. it should copy:
1) All the user settings like wallpaper, firewall settings, mouse speed, desktop icons etc
2) All the installed softwares and the settings of each softwares like: Winamp alongwith its History, Play count etc or, my browser Opera with its bookmarks, or a game alongwith its saved levels and so on
3) The windows registry also. (which follows from pt. (1) and (2))

Is there any way to do this easily? Maybe some kind of backup software? I have never used any backup software and I don't know how "backup" works.
 
No, configuration of your desktop is different from you laptop you have to create a partition and install all software you want one by one.
 
What you can do is create an Image from Desktop and then load that image on laptop. ( I prefer Acronis for its ease of use and trouble free exp. )
You can have a look at a few available options from here
(Paid)
Disk Imaging Software Review 2011 - TopTenREVIEWS
(Free)
Best Free Drive Imaging Program

But there are a few problems with this.

1) Drivers would need to be installed for laptop and old drivers removed.
2) Non-Complaint software if any have to be removed.
3) If you have a software license for only 1 machine then you are violating it.
 
But most of the softwares don't depend on hardware configuration. For example, the same winamp version can run properly on my desktop as well as laptop. Same goes for the browser Opera, Office2003, gtalk, virtualdub etc etc.

Ok the drivers would be definitely different coz of different hardware, but that is a problem the 'backup software' should tackle. So is there any such software?

For information, the configs are:

Desktop:
C2D E7400 2.8ghz
2GB ddr2 RAM
Gfx: Onboard
500gb HDD
OS: WinXP 32bit

Laptop:
Core i5 430M
4GB ddr3 ram
Gfx: nvidia gt330M
500gb HDD
OS: Win7 64bit; Want WinXP 32bit on another partition.
 
This should work (theoretically)

1)Get Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Advanced Edition (google it, not posting links)

2)Install it on your desktop PC

3)Create the Boot DVD

4)Now capture the entire image of your C:\ Drive on default or maximum compression (it reduced my 20gb of data to 5gb on default compression)

5)Now save this Image on a secure location on Desktop

6)Now get Driver Sweeper and/or Revo Uninstaller

7)Uninstall all your Desktop specific Drivers from the desktop (like mobo driver, display driver etc etc)

8)Now create the 2nd updated C:\ drive image of your desktop using Paragon and copy it to a pen drive or Ext HDD

9)Roll back your Desktop to its previous form using the first image that you have created at step4 by booting with the Rescue Disk you Created at step3

Now,

10)install Paragon on your laptop

11)Copy the updated system image(the 2nd image) you've created to the laptop HDD on any partition other than C:\

11)Using your boot DVD boot your laptop

12)When it asks for the image to restore from, browse to the folder where you saved the 2nd system image at

this should work
 
i got ur point u can do it

first install a driveimage xml on ur desktop and make copy(image) of windows partiton on external HDD.

then using bartpe cd with driveimagexml just pick that copy(image) of windows and load it to Hdd of ur laptop.

simple.

this is the same way as u create and restore backup.
 
Yeah... But the drivers you have on your Desktop will be those for your Desktop Hardware. While u'll need XP drivers for your Laptop hardware.

So, even after cloning, u'll need to install XP drivers for your lappy separately.
 
Ok, so basically most of u suggest, making an image of the windows partition on desktop and copying it to laptop, with a bit of headache of drivers. I'll try that.

But, how about something like:
I install fresh copy of WinXP on laptop (from WinXP CD). And then, is there any software which allow me to copy all my desktop softwares with all their settings (user files and registry settings) to my laptop?
[Note, I'm omitting the point no. 1) from my 1st post i.e. Windows User settings like wallpaper, firewall settings etc. Coz, Setting up those manually wud not be time consuming].
 
the best sol is to fresh install and restore settings of individual software . it will depend on software to software ....just replace the complete profiles folder from the old machine
 
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