I have a new HP Win 7 Home Premium computer, AMD 6-core, 6GB, 1T HDD, 64 bit and want to minimize the hassle of transferring apps and files from an HP Vista computer, AMD dual core, 32 bit, 2GB, 350GB. Any advice re PC Mover v. Zinstall? . . or a better solution. I value your opinion/experience.
for documents and such it is best to use a removable storage media. Its much easier, also I recommend that you re-install your programs instead of "transferring" them because of registry changes and required .dll files. Trust it is a lot easier, also this ensures that all your programs will work w/o any major problems that can occur.
You should be able to connect the Vista hard drive to the Windows 7 computer, reboot, and simply drag your personal data from one hard drive to the other with the mouse.
It's just a matter of deciding if that is less or more hassle than burning DVDs or using a USB thumb drive, for instance. If you have hundreds of gigabytes to move, the hard drive method may be simpler.
Yeah, reinstall your applications manually.
Don't rely on any of Windows built in doo-dads to transfer your files or email, etc. They usually work and sometimes don't---not enough certainty for me. No need to inject any complexity.
I'd drag the active User folders to DVD, external or flash stick, then on new install open the User folder being imported, Select All on Organize tab, drag them as a group to the same User folder in new install. Don't let go of left click when dragging the file group until the Explorer bar on the left side unfolds fully.
Don't mess with apps to do this as they make a simple drag-n-drop operation cumbersome. And don't import AppData to get Program settings as it is a corruption path into your new install.
Here are tips for cleaning up the notorious bloatware larded onto HP consumer rigs: HP laptop has used up all four primary partitions
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