How best to migrate Surface pro 4 to Surface Pro 5

[bjprice]

On my SP4 I've made two image backups: one of my 1809 C:\ drive and one of the whole disk including the 'hidden' partitions. (I used Easeus backup)

How best to migrate to SP5 - migrate the whole disk with hidden partitions or just my C:\drive?

Either way, I'll then do a driver update but I'm wondering whether Microsoft Update also updates the hidden partitions if I choose to restore my entire SP4 disk to SP5.

At some point I'll update to 1903 but not yet.

Thank you for your advice.

 

[Plantje]

You most likely don't want to get this advise, but I wouldn't do it at all. Why would you want that? Store your data on OneDrive and just make a fresh start.
This migration can almost only lead to all sorts of weird problems

 

[bjprice]

You most likely don't want to get this advise, but I wouldn't do it at all. Why would you want that? Store your data on OneDrive and just make a fresh start.
This migration can almost only lead to all sorts of weird problems

If only it were that simple. I've got lots of programs as well as the stuff I've created. It's really burdensome to install them all from scratch.

 

[sharpuser]

@bjprice,

You can probably save much trouble by putting those software installation files in a OneDrive folder. That way, you can re-install without using the original media for most titles.

 

[bjprice]

I'm missing something. You're suggesting I copy all the installer files to OneDrive and then run them from there rather than just run them directly from my CDs or downloads. I just don't see that as particularly efficient.

But thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Plantje]

@sharpuser He wants to go from "installed on SP4" to "installed on SP5". I think that would even be very hard when going from SP4 to SP4

Most likely it is going to cause you more trouble than time saving. You should regard configuring a new tablet as unwrapping a gift

 

[Turbo4AWD]

Trying to recall where I read it, but someone said the quickest and best way to do the migration was via some sort of Microsoft Azure and backing files up to OneDrive. They were able to have an up to date image of Win10 AND get all their files/applications back in 45mins to 1 hour. The resulting transfer made it feel like nothing happened, but now you are on a newer, faster Surface Pro. I'll see if I can find it, but it was 8-10 months ago that I read it.