Win7 64-bit compatibility check?

At school last night I noticed that plugging a Win7 64bit disk into a pc that was later determined to fail the 64bit compatibility test did not produce something like a nice "Sorry this computer cannot support a 64-bit OS." Instead it tries to boot and then reports that it detects an error and needs to repair itself, and if you aren't there to stop it it goes ahead and attempts to "repair" itself.

It seems that a 64-bit compatibility test is nothing simple and quick. Why is that?

Davej wrote:
At school last night I noticed that plugging a Win7 64bit disk into a pc that was later determined to fail the 64bit compatibility test did not produce something like a nice "Sorry this computer cannot support a 64-bit OS." Instead it tries to boot and then reports that it detects an error and needs to repair itself, and if you aren't there to stop it it goes ahead and attempts to "repair" itself.

It seems that a 64-bit compatibility test is nothing simple and quick. Why is that?

The 25 words or less answer:

Windows OSes are not designed to be portable.

Once installed, the boot disk stays with the machine. Any other
usage, is on your head.

Paul

On Tuesday, September 10, 2013 6:05:49 AM UTC-5, Paul wrote:

The 25 words or less answer:

Windows OSes are not designed to be portable.
Once installed, the boot disk stays with the machine. Any other
usage, is on your head.

Paul


Yes, I suppose that is true. There must be some label on these machine that the school tech support uses to identify the configuration.

Davej wrote:
On Tuesday, September 10, 2013 6:05:49 AM UTC-5, Paul wrote:
The 25 words or less answer:

Windows OSes are not designed to be portable.
Once installed, the boot disk stays with the machine. Any other
usage, is on your head.

Paul


Yes, I suppose that is true. There must be some label on these machine that the school tech support uses to identify the configuration.

That's a good question. If a bunch of disks were thrown
into a pile, I don't know how I'd go about sorting them.

The OS should have recorded the NIC MAC address.
If you could find it in the registry. It would
require picking up the unknown disk drive, loading
the appropriate registry hive off it, and looking for
the key holding a copy of the MAC address. Then
matching that to the machine. Like that's going to happen.

I tried looking through setupapi.log file on my current
machine, but I don't see anything there that can help
identify the motherboard. The MAC isn't recorded when the
NIC is installed.

I always write stuff on my hard drives, with a Sharpie,
to make it easier to figure out later, what goes with what.
It can be cleaned off later, with alcohol, then a new
label written on it by hand. At one time, I used a label
maker, but the pen is just faster.

Paul

On 10/09/2013 6:07 PM, Davej wrote:
It seems that a 64-bit compatibility test is nothing simple and quick. Why is that?


Too many combinations I supposed....

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