Is it possible to clone Win 8.1 & programs install to 2nd PC and change license key?

[DaRuSsIaMaN]

I work in a lab where we recently acquired 2 bare-bones computers and 2 Win 8.1 Pro licenses. I'm installing Win 8.1, updates, and other software on the first PC now. My objective is to minimize the repetitive installation process, not just Windows but other programs. Is it possible to clone the current HDD onto the drive on the other computer, and then re-activate Win 8.1 by changing the license key to the 2nd one that we bought?

The hardware on these computers is *not exactly* the same. This one I'm working on now has an SSD, whereas the second one will not; it has just a mechanical WD Blue 1TB drive. Additionally, the memory sticks are different, not just in brand, but even in specs. Pretty sure the other two chips are ECC memory whereas the ones in this PC are non-ECC, unbuffered. I can provide more details if needed.

Essentially, my question has 2 parts. Are the changes in hardware minimal enough so that Windows won't notice? (I know that in general you can't just drop a Windows image onto different hardware) The second part is how to deal with switching the license key. I've never tried anything like this before, and also I'm very new to Win 8.

 

[hajalie24]

For the second question.

 

[bloodypulp]

in your scenario, memory and hard drive do not matter. use Microsoft's Sysprep utility prior to cloning.

 

[Stoly]

Check the ahci settings and set both to ahci mode

It seems to me that the pcs have a different chipset. So you'll need to sysprep juat to be safe.

 

[DaRuSsIaMaN]

Thanks, guys!

I'm reading about Sysprep now.

Stoly, they will have the same chipsets. They come with the same motherboard. We got 2 of these barebone systems: Lenovo TS140. (They were cheaper at time of purchase.) What we did was get a set of dual-channel RAM separately, and got a SSD for one of them (didn't have the budget to get SSDs for both). Each one comes with 1x 4gb (server) RAM. So I took the one memory stick from one of them and put it into the other. Meanwhile, the dual-channel ("regular", non-server) RAM that we bought separately went into the first one. So each ends up with 8gb RAM but they're different.