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I wanted to know is it possible that I can always keep my Windows 7 copy on my backup harddisk too. So while on the go I can just connect my harddisk and use all the programs on some other machine too?

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up vote 3 down vote accepted

There are two ways to do this:

  • The only way to make this work with all apps is to install Windows 7 into a virtual machine, then carry the virtual machine around with you. You would need either VMWare, VirtualBox, or some other virtualization software to be installed on each machine you want to use.

  • Use portable applications that you can keep on your external hard drive, such as those found from PortableApps.com.

Windows maintains a lot of information about the hardware it's running on; you cannot reliably take a Windows installation and run it on radically different hardware, especially if you try to do this regularly. When the hardware changes, Windows will become de-activated and require you to activate it again.

Depending on your jurisdiction, there are also legal issues involved. You would essentially have two independent installations of Windows, so you would require two licenses to do this.

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It would be a LOT slower, but qemu doesn't require an install to run –  hbdgaf Nov 18 '10 at 16:29
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If it isn't volume licensed it will deactivate due to hardware changes...you could put it inside of a VM.

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