Best software to copy/backup OS?

[MoreDents]

What's the best software to copy my entire OS (currently Win 7 RC) and back it up on my external hard drive?

And let's say it was Vista, would I need to re-activate it? If not, then what's stopping people from making copies upon copies on different hard drives and giving away free OS's?

Thanks

 

[bigdogchris]

7 and Vista have a built in backup. Just go to the control panel and select back and restore center under maintenance. You should see 'back up entire computer' or something like that. It will drop an image of the system onto whatever drive you point it. To use that image to restore the system, boot to your installation disc and choose the repair option then restore computer from the image.

No, you won't have to reactivate as long as it was activated when you made the image. If you drop that image onto another system and it doesn't match the hardware hash check then yes it will want to reactivate.