Converting Windows Laptop to 2k8r2 Server

I got this idea from the official blog. I can think of an improvement though: why not just copy over those directories before installing the new OS? That way, you don't have to deal with partitions.

If you can install an OS, then you have a media that is accessible to load all the drivers (even better to make a disk of just the bare drivers, even if only one instance of time).

The steps would be something like this:

1. Create/Obtain installation media for target OS.
2. Transfer contents of C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository to the same media type as target OS installation media.
3. Boot from installation media of new OS.
4. Install the new OS
5. Go to device manager of new OS and for each missing driver, load from exported data of step 2

I will try this in the future and let you know how it goes. Right now, I have a Lenovo Z580 Win7 machine that I only access via VNC: no point in dedicating resources on the machine for a GUI that's never used, right?