Migrate apps & files to new Win 7 Pro PC w/cloud, ext. HDD, Flashdrive

Tedebear said:

I currently have a 10 yr. old Lenovo ThinkPad w/256GB HDD running Windows 7 Pro. I've ordered a new Lenovo P50 with Xeon processor and 512GB HDD also running Windows 7 Pro. I back up the old PC to an external HDD and to the cloud via iDrive (a very nice straitforward backup program). From all I've read, migration programs that can move application files (e.g. PCMOVER Pro, Zinstall WinWin) are often flaky and unreliable (and slow!). Is there a faster safe way I can migrate all my files (apps & data) to my new computer using one of my current backup sources or a flashdrive?

You say "faster safe" for apps and data.

I say no for apps. I'd plan on freshly installing all apps. You can play around with "migrating" if you insist, but there's a learning curve involved, not to mention the "flaky and unreliable" to which you refer. I'm not aware of any fast, safe, and reliable method.

If you have 300 applications to install and configure, maybe you take the risk of flakiness purely to save the time associated with the installation and configuration of that many apps. But that's a rare case. I'd bite the bullet and re-install my most used apps immediately and the less used apps as I needed them over the ensuing weeks and months. Most likely, there will be some apps on the old machine that you will never re-install on the new one.

Data? Nothing wrong with ordinary drag and drop from whatever data backup location you have. Flash drive is doable, but generally slower and lower capacity.

The new machine will have a new Windows license, so there's no point in attempting to migrate Windows. You'd run into licensing issues even if you insisted on trying that.