OS: Win7 Professional, two new machines
Goal: Create a disk backup with one machine and then restore it to the other so that I have two identical machines to work with.
With my four XP machines, I was able to create one backup and then restore to the other three identical machines—and then use all four simultaneously without ever being asked to supply the OS product keys for those three machines.
Fry’s says with Win7 the installed OS is paired with each machine’s motherboard, therefore, if I try the same with Win7, I will definitely, sooner or later, be asked to prove that the OS on the second machine is authentic.
Problem: neither Dell machine has the usual sticker. Instead, there is a sticker to be used to register the machines with Dell.
Question: Assuming that registering the machines will allow Dell to give me the Win7 OS product keys for each machine, what is the procedure for using a memory stick instead of CDs/DVDs to boot a machine after restoring an image to the C drive? The reason I ask is that merely mounting the memory stick when asked to insert an installation disk accomplishes nothing.*
Thank you.
*My attempt to create System Repair Disk (SRD) with each new machine failed. I was advised to instead create WIN7 installation software on specifically a memory stick, and if ever there is a need for a SRD, such as when booting from an image backup, the memory stick can be used to boot the system.