Windows 10: Moving settings and data from one windows 10 laptop to another

My son, kind boy that he is, bought me a new laptop for Christmas.
The old one is perfectly serviceable, but slow (i3-2365M, 1TB hdd, 8Gb mem, on-chip graphics*Sad ). The new one is a i7-6700HQ, 512Gb sdd, 1TBhdd, 16Gb mem, NVIDIAGeForce GTX 960M *Biggrin. Both laptops have Windows 10 OS. How can I transfer my files, data, settings and programs to the new laptop?

:)

 

Moving data from one windows 8 phone to another

Thanks for the information. It seems there is no 'select all' option then! I'm no fan of using the cloud for stuff like photos that I may wish to access at any time because here in Australia the internet and broadband services are nowhere near the quality
(or price) where that would make financial sense-so manually transfer them it is then.....

 

Moving data from one windows 8 phone to another

This tells you what is backed up:

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/how-to/wp8/settings-and-personalization/back-up-my-stuff

You can go to your onedrive app, your pictures and select photos, then select download.

If you have a lot of pics this is slow.

I usually copy pics over to the PC and copy them back to my different phone, much faster.

 

Files no problem - just copy them e.g. with the help of a USB stick.

Programs you have to reinstall.

Settings the same - they have to be redone.

OR - you can try prepping your OS for the transfer with this command:

%windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown

I have never tried that myself so no guarantees.

 

There is a Microsoft utility called Windows Easy Transfer (WET), which was first supplied with Windows Vista. However, when Microsoft released Windows 8, it did a deal with Laplink to provide a free version of its PCmover program instead.


Free data transfer


*It can be Free download available from September 1, 2015 through August 31, 2016. Will run only if source PC is Windows XP or later and destination PC is Windows 8.1 or Windows 10.


Alternatives to PCmover
EaseUS has also entered the market with an alternative Windows 10 Easy Transfer Tool, which is also a free download for home users.


See how to transfer Effective & Secure Solution to Migrate OS to HDD/SSD



Note: i am sure this can help you transfer files, data and programs, but , I think it should be no way to transfer settings.

 

If your logging in with a Microsoft ID, and have sync enabled, quit a few settings etc will be synced to your other PC. IE favorites and web site logon info too, if you want. Settings > Accounts > Sync your settings.

 

This is the way that I would do it, but will require external storage big enough to hold disk images.

1. Install Macrium Reflect Free on both computers. Make a Macrium Reflect Rescue USB/CD/DVD (only one needed).
2. Generalize the old computer's Windows 10 using sysprep above.
3. Boot the old computer from the Macrium Reflect Rescue disk, make an image of the generalized Windows 10 partition.
4. Make an image of the new computer's entire hard drive using Macrium Reflect, just in case. Always good to have backup anyway.
5. Boot new computer from Macrium Reflect Free Rescue disk, replace existing Windows 10 partition with the generalized image.
6. You might have to run the fix boot problems utility in Macrium Reflect because the partition GUID will be different than what is in the boot files.
7. Reboot new computer with fingers crossed.
8. If it works, clean install Windows 10 on old computer because you likely have programs and apps on it for which you only have a single license (like MS Office) and you need to "uninstall" them on the old computer.

If it fails, just restore the entire hard disk image of the new computer that you created.

 

I like your thinking. I use Paragon as a routine back-up. I should explain that Windows 10 is installed on the C: drive in my current computer, whereas, in the new computer, it is installed to the SSD. Should I copy the contents of the old C: drive onto the SSD?

 

That should work.

 

LapLink has changed their product setup. They still have PCMover, which will "migrate" you from one PC and OS version to another, but now, only the "Pro" version migrates applications. The free version is the same as the old Windows product -- as it only migrates settings and data.

 

I would also mention Zinstall, which for me worked very well. Even recommended in a different thread on the forum.
I think they are more expensive, but they really do the job well.

See video in the tutorial here:
How to transfer programs and files to new PC

Hope this helps!

 

There's also Easeus ToDo PCTrans. (I've used Laplink 2 or 3 times in the past- it transferred over 300 programs successfully, just a few had to be re-licensed). Don't use it for very large complex programs, games, and certainly not AV/firewalls.