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I have two Windows 7 on my computer in dualboot. One is Home Edition, the other one Professional. I used to work with the Home before installing the Pro and now I am working exclusively with the Pro. On the home I have still some programs and data (like favorites) which I would like to move to the Pro. Is there a Way to merge two Windows 7 installations into one?

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  • You will be unable to do this. You would have to know how the registry was changed when those programs were installed, what data files are requires, its not as simple as just copying and pasting the application folders into your other Windows partition. Its best to just install these applications again fresh and be done with it. If these programs are actually licensed to you that shouldn't be a problem.
    – Ramhound
    Apr 16, 2013 at 10:58

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There is no automated process for merging two Windows installations. But you may be able to copy settings and data for some installed applications from your home to your Pro installation:

Windows applications can store settings and further data in the registry as well as in the hidden Appdata directory in you user profile (%userprofile%\Appdata).

If you don't know much about the registry you should skip it and only look into the folders inside the Appdata folder. For each app identify the used folders (usually the name indicates it) and ZIP/RAR everything and save the archive somewhere where you have access from both installations. Don't copy the files directly as you will otherwise run into a permission problem.

On the other installation unzip the files to the same location but make sure you don't overwrite any directories.

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None that I know or can think of. Even ignoring the difficulties of syncing different configurations, an automatic merging of whole Windows installations would present a lot of licensing problems.

Manual backup/restore of your user data is no big deal anyway. Do it, then change your MBS to load Pro, and format the partition with Home on it.

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