How to Migrate OS When Windows Running in Background?

Benefits of OS migration

With more and more high-tech disks coming up, lots of users would like to choose a nice disk to do a disk upgrade to improve PC performance. SSD is the most popular choice as a system disk. After you get a new SSD, to use it as the system disk, usually have 2 options: reinstall OS or clone your old disk.

However, if you only wish to keep your OS, OS migration is a more convenient measure, especially for now the C drive of many PC is a just single SSD, when it’s almost full, only move the operating system to a larger disk can save both time and labor.

Can I migrate OS when Windows running in background?

Of course, you can do this job.

When you need to migrate OS while your PC is running some programs can’t be interrupted, if you can migrate OS when Windows is running in background, you don’t need to cease the programs and reboot the PC several times.

And sometimes, users might need a quick OS backup to save system data when the system has something wrong.

Handy OS migration tool—Migrate OS while Windows running

To realize migrating OS while Windows keeps running, practical migration software is indispensable. AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is a handy Windows disk/partition management tool supporting Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP. Compared with the common tool on the market, this tool uses the hot clone method to allow users to migrate OS when Windows running in background whether for a virtual machine or your PC.

What’s more, this tool holds many other features like resizing/deleting/cloning partition, converting data disk to GPT, and so on, with one tool you can do many things to flexibly manage your computer.

Now, let’s see how to move OS to another drive

After you connect the target disk steadily, we can start!

Step 1. Download and install AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. In the top pane, click “Clone” > “Migrate OS”. It also applies to HDD.

Step 2. Select an unallocated space on the destination SSD and click “Next”. If there’s no unallocated space, you can resize a partition to create it.

Step 3. In this window, you can resize the partition just being created on the SSD drive if necessary. Then, click “Next”.

Step 4. Click “Finish” to continue.

Step 5. Then you’ll back to the main interface and click “Apply” to commit the operation. During the transfer, you can still use Windows and the computer will not restart when the transfer is over.

When you boot your PC next time, you need to enter BIOS to change the boot order if you wish to run OS from your new disk.

If everything is fine, you can directly wipe the old disk and use it as a data drive to store your data files.

Further tips—Clone disk while OS running

Same as the “Migrate OS”, you can go to the “Clone Disk” function which also uses the hot clone technique, if you need to clone the whole disk while OS is running.

Summary

With AOMEI Partition Assistant, you can migrate OS when Windows running in the background and move Windows without rebooting it many times. As a considerate PC management utility, it has the Server Edition for Windows Server 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012(R2), the Unlimited Edition for enterprise users to manage multiple machines efficiently, and the Tech Edition for professional PC tech clients. All users can possess a suitable tool for their devices.