Yes, you must do a system partition copy and restore it on the newer machine afterwards. The newer machine should have the same chipset.

Check out ShadowProtect Desktop; it's a bit more expensive, but I've found it to be very reliable compared to Ghost or True Image. It also has a recovery mode where you can "inject" new drivers into the OS during the restoration process, allowing you to move the system to dissimilar hardware (different mobo chipset, different HD tech, etc.) that would otherwise leave the restored system unbootable. It's a terrible thing to invest in insurance only to be let down when you really need it, so regardless of which software you choose, you should test the restoration process on another system and/or hard disk before relying on it.

One thing to watch out for with any backup software is power management, particularly with notebooks where it is used more often. I messed up the first image I tried to make on an HP notebook because it went into sleep mode during the backup. Having that occur during restoration could be even worse...

Imaging is no solution to move an OS installation from one machine to a different one. Never was, never will be. There is no "clean" way but to reinstall the OS and all drivers/apps on a new machine. I don't know about "injecting" drivers while restoring, but i'm willing to bet that you'll run into a lot of trouble when you try moving the OS that way. A complete reinstall is no big deal if you do it the right way. Just document anything important you install/configure (a small textfile would be sufficient), and recreate all steps on the new hardware. This takes some time and brain work, but it'll make reinstalling very easy and efficient. It's also possible to "move" the config of many apps, by saving certain registry keys and config files, and restoring them on the target machine/OS.

Btw, you don't need any kind of OS image for DOSBox games. DOSBox is a "virtual environment", so it should work on a different computer/OS just by installing it and configuring it correctly (i.e., like it was configured on the "old" machine/OS). It's important to use the same mountings you've used on the "old" machine.

For Windows games, i'm using a workflow that works amazingly well. I'm installing the games on a test machine, and then scan the file system/registry for any changes (there's tools to do this). Most of the time, there's only one or two registry keys added during the installation, and the game files of course. By importing the registry keys on my "main" PC and copying the game files, i was able to get even recent games to work perfectly (online play, updates and all). You'll sometimes need nocd-patches, but these can be obtained easily. Another benefit of this method is that you don't get the crap that comes with modern games, like hidden device drivers. This process worked perfectly for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., C&C3, C&C:RA3, F.E.A.R. (+addons), Quake 3/4, and many more games.

ADDiCT wrote:

For Windows games, i'm using a workflow that works amazingly well. I'm installing the games on a test machine, and then scan the file system/registry for any changes (there's tools to do this).

This is an interesting approach. Please tell me more. As i understand it, the reason you can't simply copy a Windows game folder from one machine to another is because of registry keys and files that are scattered around. This was the reason I thought I needed to create a disc image, to catch all of these files.

Are you saying there is a way to manually do this? What about if you installed the games and did NOT monitor registry changes (like me). Is it possible to hunt all these changes and files and copy them to another machine? I'm up to the challenge if it means getting my games to run on another machine.

* Where games store files outside their install directories
* What registry keys are effected
* Other factors? (drivers?)

Just try it! Out of all games i've tested, only one (!) copied files to a directory outside its own install directory. That game was Civ 4, and with later patches, it stopped using files outside its own directory. For all other games, you only need the files from the game's directory, and one or two registry keys. There's a lot of registry monitoring tools available, i'm using one called "TrackWinstall", but i think it's available in german only.

The registry keys are in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE" most of the time, "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE" in a few cases. You want to look for a subkey named after the manufacturer, and then the game name.

The method of taking "snapshots" of the filesystem and registry was made popular by PC Magazine and their legendary InCtrl tool. Unfortunately, they stopped developing it a long time ago.

A few years later came Ashampoo Uninstaller, which used the same techniques and worked well (but unfortunately it didn't support x64 versions of windows)

More recently, it has appeared a new program called "Total Uninstall", made by Martau:

http://www.martau.com/

It does support x64 versions of Windows, and it's also compatible with Vista and Server 2008. It works very well, but it does cost money 🙁

You can download a trial version, though, and it's functional for 30 days.

Regards.