What Files Can be Migrated to a New Computer?

Migration is simply the transfer of information from an old computer to a new computer. It can be done "automatically" with very little user involvement using migration software, or manually, usually by a computer expert who knows what to do and has plenty of spare time to do it!

Most people underestimate what can be migrated, so let's take care of that right now.

Migrate Files

If you have had your computer for a while, you've probably got hundreds, maybe thousands of files. They include music, photos, spreadsheets, documents, financial files, and much, much more. You may have already encountered the need to move a file from one computer to another and for a few files at a time it is relatively simple; save the file(s) to a floppy, CD, Zip disk, etc. and move the file to the other computer via the media.

The problem is much larger when you consider moving all the files, or the majority of them, to a new computer. You need to consider the folder structure and organization that you have. Plus, if your method of moving files in the past has been via a floppy disk, expect to need MANY floppy disks or do a lot of formatting and reformatting. For example, 1 gigabyte of data would require over 1,000 floppies.

Migrate Settings

These include things like your Internet dial-up number and username, background pictures, shortcuts, custom tool bars, and more. Most people have spent considerable time over the life span of their PC creating settings and it would be a terrible waste of time to have to create them on a new computer.

Migrating settings can be very difficult to do manually, but fortunately, is one thing that migration software does very well. The reason that settings can be so difficult is because in most cases the data that maintains the settings is accessed only by the application and not the user.

It requires in-depth knowledge of the application to know where those settings and data are stored and how to extract them.

The task becomes even more complex when faced with moving those settings to a different version of the same application, since sometimes the way that the data is handled differs from version to version.

Migrate Email

If you use an email product like Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, it can be extremely tricky moving it to a new computer.

Two major challenges need to be faced with moving your email to a new system: 1) What type of email you are using and, 2) What email will you be using on the new system.

The real challenge lies not only in finding the email data file and moving it over (if you have many messages be prepared to have a higher capacity media to hold the entire file), but in placing it in the right location and creating the right settings in order for the email to work on the new computer. This can be a nightmare if done manually, but again quite simple for migration software.

Migrate Programs to Your New Computer

We do not move applications for one simple reason. Nobody can guarantee that every application that is moved will run on the new PC with a vastly different Operating System, i.e., Windows 7. The last thing we want is for you not to be able to use your new PC.

Detto recommends that you install the applications on the new PC with the original disks from the manufacturers or the software you purchased separately.