Windows family operating systems are notorious for their excessive sensibility to hardware, especially when it turns to replacement of such a crucial device as HDD controller or motherboard – actually Windows will most likely fail to boot as a result of this operation.
In 2008 our company came with an exclusive technology called Paragon Adaptive Restore™. Initially aimed at restore of Windows Vista or Server 2008 from a backup to a different hardware configuration, its current realization, available in the P2P Adjust OS Wizard, enables to make any Win2K system (Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 and Vista/7/Server 2008) bootable on dissimilar hardware by allowing automatic injection of all required drivers and the other actions crucial for this type of migration.
Let’s take a closer look at how Paragon Adaptive Restore works.

As you see, successful migration of a Win2K system to a different hardware platform involves several actions:
1. Change of the Windows kernel settings according to the new configuration. The program detects the given hardware profile and automatically installs the appropriate Windows HAL and kernel.
2. Installation of drivers for boot critical devices. The program detects those without drivers and automatically tries to install lacking drivers from the built-in Windows repository. If there’s no driver in the repository, it prompts the user to set a path to an additional driver repository, strongly recommending not to proceed until all drivers for the found boot critical devices are installed. In case drivers for these devices are installed, but disabled, they will be enabled.
3. Installation of drivers for a PS/2 mouse and keyboard. This action will only be accomplished for Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003.
4. Installation of drivers for network cards. The program detects those without drivers and automatically tries to install lacking drivers from the built-in Windows repository. If there’s no driver in the repository, it prompts the user to set a path to an additional driver repository.
These actions guarantee a Win2K system will start up on dissimilar hardware. After the startup, Windows will initiate reconfiguration of all Plug'n'Play devices. It’s a standard procedure, so please don’t worry and prepare the latest drivers at this step to get the most out of the system.
|
|
Though all Win2K systems have built-in driver repositories, please be prepared to have additional drivers when dealing with Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003, because for these systems they are very modest. |
Let’s consider a number of situations when the Adaptive Restore technology can help you out:
· If you need to migrate to a different hardware platform with minimal effort
· If you need to upgrade hardware while keeping all programs and settings intact
· If you need to replace failed hardware and cannot find an exact match for original system specifications
1. After transferring Microsoft Vista and later versions to different hardware, you will need to re-activate license of the system. It’s normal behavior as these systems keep tracking any change of hardware. Re-activation is legally justified in this case, as you transfer your system to another PC.
2. If you’ve installed several operating systems on one partition, we can only add drivers to the latest version of OS. Microsoft highly recommends that you install an operating system on a separate partition.
3. Please note drivers are not cached during selection. That’s why if you select a driver to add to the system, but it’s already unavailable during the operation, the program will end the operation with an error.