Nekkid laptop?

Get your minds out of the gutters.

Here's what's happening: I have a Dell lappy running Win 7 which I like fine. It's starting to have hardware issues, though. I have another lappy running Vista, which I detest. It still works fine but is getting some age on it and I'd like to back everything up before something horrible does happen.

So here is my stoopid question: is it possible to buy a lappy that has no O/S at all, then transfer my Win 7 to it? Then transfer all the various files etc from both existing lappys to that one? Or is this a tremendously stupid question to even ask?

Also, my desktop crashed due to being disconnected for a long time during my last move. I think it's the motherboard, I also entertain thoughts of retrieving all my pics and stuff from that at the same time. It was running XP.

So everybody tell me how dumb this is.

It can be done- just not terribly easily. You're likely going to have to buy a custom rig of some sort- even Chromebook has... Chrome on it. Other than that it should in their be as simple as mounting up whatever os you want and running the HDDs from the other rigs as slaves and gutting them that way- or if you can get them to boot long enough drop everything to a flash drive and go that way. My personal advice would be buy a rig with whatever os you want prep installed, find the iso for it and do a flash install right off the bat to gut the bloatware. Probably cheaper.than a custom box.

Your best bet would be to look at some of the more boutique types/brands of laptops than the typical suspects. Look at newegg to get an idea. Gaming laptops will probably have less bloat than the typical consumer grade boxes. It may be impossible to get one without a windows installation. Mndsm is right about just wiping and doing a fresh reinstall to get rid of the bloat.

My big thing is I'd like to keep Win 7. Hmmm. Microsoft has a big page on 'transferring license' but it says if the OS has been updated it won't work. Well, how the hell would a 'factory loaded' OS NOT have a zillion damn updates by now? Rat bastards.

Maybe I will just replace the touchpad etc on the Dell and transfer the Vista stuff to it.

Worst case scenario is you buy an 8/8.1 laptop, wipe it, and install a new copy of 7.

That's a possibility. Thing is, that means I'd lose the touch screen ability. I gotta think this all the way through (gobbles another pain pill).

Use the media that came with the Win7 lappy (or download it from the manufacturer/torrent site) and use the license key that came with the lappy (usually stuck on the bottom). If you get an error stating you have to register it because its already been used, call Microsoft's support line and go through the automated process to get another key.

Now, the media you'll get will likely be keyed to the manufacturer, so if you wanna transfer you should stick with the same company. Drivers will need to be downloaded, etc. so you may want to do that ahead of time and put it on a flash drive (decompressed into folders) so you'll have it during installation.

If its just the touchpad that is having problems, I'd get a replacent online for cheap and save myself the effort.

Also, Microsoft is doing some nasty tricks with newer systems to prevent the installation of other operating systems by denying access to the boot partition of the drive, some research there is needed to ensure you don't end up stuck up a creek without a paddle.

Why not just get a W8? If I can make my new Dell W8 computer look and act just like my previous Dell XP machine I am sure you can make it like W7.

You can't get a new laptop without an OS for cheap. There are a few retailers in the world that sell bare laptops or laptops with Linux but they're more expensive for some reason.

Then to transfer all the files you have to worry about Windows licensing (it won't go smoothly for sure, worst case it could invalidate your license) and UEFI secure boot (the problem mentioned above - not hard to defeat if you know what you're doing).

Here is the problem, Just about every MS Client OS is licensed for use on that machine only and not transferable. It's been that way since windows 95. Unless you buy a retail box version (which no one ever does) That OS license lives and dies with that unit.

So you will not be able to activate the new unit with that license unfortunately.

(been in IT sales and service since 1998)

As long as you get another Dell laptop you will be able to put the Win 7 on it, otherwise you can not transfer it.