PC Hacks 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools

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Hack 96 Move Applications and Settings from One PC to Another

It's not hard to get essential PC "personality" information from your old PC to your new one.

Microsoft anticipated the old-to-new PC transition and has tried to make it easier and desirable to upgrade your PCs by including a tool to copy desktop settings and preferences as well as your datafiles.

Using the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, shown in Figure 10-3, is about as simple as can be. It sets up the process on the Windows XP system and creates the diskette needed to connect the two PCs together to allow the data transfers to "fly by wire." The connection between both PCs may be over a serial cable (very slow), a Direct Cable Connection between parallel ports, or through files saved from the old PC to disks or a network drive.

Figure 10-3. Windows XP Files and Setting Transfer Wizard

The program will automatically find your Windows settings and default document file locations on the old PC and let you choose which documents and other datafiles you want to transfer to the new PC. To reduce software piracy and avoid potential compatibility problems, this tool does not let you transfer program files to another PC. You will have to reinstall and, where required, reactivate your applications.

Of course, Microsoft included this feature in XP only after other companies had created and marketed products to address the issue of PC migration. Several vendors provide equal or better features to get your "stuff" onto your new PC, including:

• AlohaBob's PC Relocator (http://www.alohabob.com)

• Acronis MigrateEasy (http://www.acronis.com)

• Spearit Software's Move Me (http://www.spearit.com)

• Detto IntelliMover (http://www.detto.com)

Of these, Aloha Bob's PC Relocator is my favorite. From Day One, AlohaBob's has been the only migration program to transfer not only settings and files but also application programs—it simply works for me.

10.3.1 Aloha Bob's PC Relocator

Cloning an entire hard drive is certainly quick and easy, but if you're going from an old Windows 9x system to a new Windows XP system, cloning the old hard drive [Hack #95] wipes out your XP installation. Transferring only your data and Windows settings leaves the new PC's operating system intact but leaves you having to reinstall your applications on the new PC.

Covering the middle ground is the PC Relocator utility, which is capable of transferring not only Windows settings and data but also your installed application programs. PC Relocator, shown in Figure 10-4, can transfer items from your old PC to the new one by special parallel port data transfer cables, network connections, USB transfer cable, or disk storage.

Figure 10-4. PC Relocator moves application programs as well as datafiles

Since most users have just one hard drive for everything from operating systems and applications to data, it's easy for PC Relocator to reestablish the old PC's environment on the new PC. One thing PC Relocator cannot do is resolve locations of applications and data if the old PC uses multiple partitions and the new one uses just one partition. Instead of guessing where applications and data from various drives are supposed to go, PC Relocator makes folders representing and containing the contents of the old PC's partitions, which you have to sort out on the new system's drive after completing the transfer. If you encounter this situation, you will probably have to reinstall some applications and move datafiles around to suit the configuration of your new PC.

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