How to transfer installed programs from old computer to new?

Is it possible to transfer my whole computer to another?

  • By this, i mean save every single little bit of information from my hard drive, and transfer it to another, so it even has all my installed programs. Literally, i want to be able to plug in an external hard drive, and it be like everything has just shifted onto another computer. Is this possible?

  • Answer:

    I would look into Norton Ghost, you generally take a snapshot of your PC and then run the tool in the startup of the new PC. It copies every bit of data even though i would recommend from personal experience to do a fresh install and make backups of your current setup.

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There are software packages out there, like Acronis True Image that will help you do that. BUT.. and this is a big but.. unless the hardware is almost exactly the same, then the HAL (hardware abstraction level) won't work.. and your new machine will be useless. Another way to go is to make your entire machine into a Virtual Machine file. Search for P2V (physical to virtual) on Microsoft.. they have a free utility, probably under the Russinovich blog or tools site. Then, you can take that VM file, and on another machine, running Win 7 with Virtual Machines... or add VM to one of the older versions.. then you can run the virtual machine on top of your new machine. ... it doesn't work precisely the same, since you have another OS on top, and direct access to peripherals may be limited or even blocked. VMWare and other virtualization softwares are options.. Deep Freeze, Acronis, Norton Ghost, (others..) and even a free download of Linux and the " dd " utility will let you make bit-by-bit copies.

http://clonezilla.org/ However, your software is typically licensed for a specific number of uses. So a lot of software, such as Windows, will have to be reactivated on the new computer (yes, even though it's a bit-for-bit copy. It knows its on different hardware). If you're running an OEM version of Windows (one that came with the computer), you'll have to go out and get a new Windows license- the OEM installs are only allowed to be used on one computer. Not one computer at a time (like the retail licenses).

You would have to have a computer with almost the same components installed to do that with any degree of success as said before using Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image also you normally find you will have to reactivate windows and office etc but it is sometimes possible :-)

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