Bought a used computer to fix up and give to a friend. It had a SSD on it, and my friend sold it to me. Anywho, the guy we bought it from had a pirated copy of windows on the SSD (Don't turn this into some debate about how it is or isn't ok to pirate) and I want to install my own copy of Windows 7 on it. The problem is, It's my understanding that once you install windows oem it ties itself to the exact motherboard and hdd you install it on. Would it be at all possible to install it onto my ssd? Or am I out of luck? The motherboard remains the same. If it is possible, is there a way to do it without reformatting my current HDD? The SSD is only 60 gigs and I planned on leaving it as a standalone os boot drive, so there's not enough rooms to transfer around my main HDD. Thanks.
You can install anything you want, If you have your own copy of Windows 7 then go ahead and reformat the drive and install your copy. If the drive has things you want to keep, the clone/backup the drive before you reformat. It's best to have a clean/reformatted install especially from a pirated copy. Pirated copies are known to have trojans/keyloggers and other types of malware, so I would recommend you just do a fresh install.
Yeah, I completely wiped the SSD's pirated windows. My concern was with the fact that my own copy of windows is OEM.
Didi you get the key from the previous machine?
No. It's my own copy.
oem keys are normally coded into the bios of the pc they came with. you can use an oem disk to install windows but it won't activate. that said if you have a pc that had a oem sticker instead of useing slic/uefi bios key then as long as you use the oem key with the oem disk then it should work provided your only using it on that one machine.
This isn't a factory built pc that came with an OS, it's a custom computer with an OEM copy installed (No stores sell 7 retail anymore, at least not around where I live - so OEM from Amazon was my only opportunity)
a better option is to get widows 8/10 pro then use Downgrade rights to install win7.
oem disks only recognise one key unlike a retail copy that accepts a range of keys by default. but that only applies for offline activation. if you skip that step during install then you can use online activation to get around that limitation.
also yes you can move windows from a hdd to ssd without reformatting the hdd. most ssd makers have software on their site for that purpose. if not the Intel® Data Migration Software should work.
Hmm I'm gonna have to look more into the migration thing. Thanks a lot!
Next time I buy a Windows machine, I am gonna have to have my lawyer read thru the UELA. MS thinks we are all geniuses or something. Thanks for making it more simplified.