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More important IMO is the fact that Linux re-detects hardware on every boot! Try moving a Windows hard drive to completely new hardware and getting it to boot. Not a chance...
I've done that multiple times without issue.
The windows boot drive? Dont think thats possible anymore. If its completely new hardware.
Im not sure what the trigger is but if enough hardware has changed it wont boot.
I had to install windows fresh on a new hard drive when i bought a new pc last year.
If the partitioning is fine (GPT with EFI System Partition), it should boot up even if you move the disk to a completely new machine. You will need to re-activate Windows though after booting.
You may have had the ESP on a different drive than the one you moved to the new machine, perhaps?
Were you using BitLocker? You need to disable that before moving the drive.
Now that i think about it, i think it was an activation issue. I had a dodgey made legal copy of windows 10 when they offered the free upgrade to even those with illegal copies of windows, but when i moved it, i needed to activate and didn't know the key.
But two replies offering different bits of advice to my comment shows that at least in part its true that this is not straightforward
I did just that just yesterday/today. Built a new PC from scratch, added the SSD with Windows from the old PC, booted up, and it worked just fine. I didn't even need to reinstall the graphics driver.
That actually works fine since like XP
Until it marks you as unlicensed because you used a new motherboard.
Still runs, albeit with a your are bad symbol...
Which is easy to solve
Well, more like 7 onwards. XP was quite hit and miss unless you did a load of prep first.
It must have stopped with Win11. Tried to upgrade one of my family members Laptop. Took the ssd from the old one, put it in the new Laptop and only got to the Windows rescue Window. With Linux. I can setup an ssd with my laptop and when setup, plug it into my headless server and everything works fine.
TPM is integrated on the motherboard of the old computer so that would never work without foregoing the extra safety.
Yup. though for GPU drivers you'll need to cleanly reinstall them if you downloaded them separately from windows update (which is a requirement for most gaming GPU users)
At least on linux its [insert distro command here] and it'll have your new drivers up and running for you without bloatware
True, GPU drivers are a mess