Cloned Installation of Windows 95/98 Is Not Supported

• Microsoft Windows 95
• Microsoft Windows 98

SUMMARY

Microsoft provides several methods for properly installing Windows on a computer. A cloned installation, which is when an installed version of Windows is copied from one computer to another, is not a supported method of installing Windows.

MORE INFORMATION

During Windows Setup, information is collected about the specific hardware installed in your computer. This information may include Basic Input-Output (BIOS) information, hardware versions, system settings, media access control (MAC) addresses of installed network interface cards (NIC), and unique serial numbers assigned to specific devices.

According to the Plug and Play Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) specification section 6.1.2, a vendor can encode its hardware with a unique serial number. This number enables the BIOS and Windows to distinguish between multiple cards with the same vendor ID plugged into the same computer.

In a cloned installation, Windows may be able to detect new hardware and install the appropriate drivers, but due to the unknown nature of the computer on which Windows is cloned, Microsoft can only support this configuration on a reasonable effort basis.

Microsoft does support copying Windows from one hard disk to another hard disk in the same computer. For information about how to do so, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

ARTICLE-ID: Q166172
TITLE : Duplicating Windows 95 Installation to a New Hard Disk

Additional query words: mirror image

Keywords          : kbpolicy kbsetup dtssb win95 win98 
Version           : WINDOWS:95
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbinfo 

Last Reviewed: April 9, 1999