Solved! Data and Program transfer from XP to Win 7?

[MsMonday]

How can I transfer my programs and data files fro my old XP laptop to my new Win7 laptop?

 

[marcellis22]

Burn your data to CD/DVD, you can't transfer programs, they'll have to be reinstalled...

 

[Boxa786]

You cant transfer the programs as installed on your old xp laptop. In order to install the programs on your new laptop, you will need to install them one by one on your new laptop. For this you will need the original cd's/dvd's or setup files.

Good news is, you will have no problems transferring your data from your old laptop to the new one. You can either use a USB stick, hard drive or CD(s), or DVD(s). Depending on how much data you need to transfer:
First choose the best transfer media, however, in all cases, a USB hard drive is your best option.

Buy an external hard drive and connect it to your old laptop. Transfer the data/files on to it.
Once you copied all the files/data on to it, then simply connect the usb hard drive to your new laptop and transfer the data/files across.

Now that you have a spare USB external hard drive, you can use this as your backup media for future.

 

[dwellman]

Please research User State Migration Tool (USMT)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...8C-691B-4B36-B7AD-6C604BE4C595&displaylang=en

Or this:

Basic Windows Migration

http://windows7.iyogi.net/migration/window7-free-migration.html

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Actually you can move programs from one machine to another ... been doing it for years. It's a bit easier if you use a separate programs partition but can still be done. And much easier if you use a twin windows explorer replacement such as Powerdesk.

1. Open Explorer so Program Files is highlighted on the left and your program folders are on the right. On PowerDesk, this would be your top explorer window

2. Highlight the 1st program folder, hold shift key down and use down arrow to highlight entire list of folders. Right click and hit COPY.

3. Maneuver in Explorer to your transfer drive (DVD, USB whatever), highlight the root, right click and hit PASTE. In Powerdesk, just move to your bottom window.

4. Now on the new machine, do the reverse....copy / paste all the program folders into the ne OS's ProgramFiles directory or any other directory / partition if that suits ya fancy.

5. Now take out the original install CD's and install the programs over themselves to provide necessary registry entries.

If your wondering 'why bother ?" w/ the cut 'n paste .... all your customizations, updates, toolbars etc get carried over this way .

 

[Boxa786]

JackNaylor, that is exactly the same method of what dwellman has posted and it is NOT copying the programs.

As said earlier, you cannot copy the actual program install from win xp to win 7.

For any and all programs, the files like reg entries, saves, personal settings etc etc you dont need any software to do this, you can simply copy the entire program folder from win xp to win 7, obviously only pasting the ones you want in win 7, from within the program folder.

With both JackNalor's and Dwellan's suggestions, OP will stil have to install the programs again on win 7.

Like I said, choose best media, I recommend an external usb hard drive. Copy files on to the drive, and paste in win 7. Simple....

 

[dwellman]

I also like DriveImage XML for making a backup image.. in case anything should go awry (the backups are browseable)

This is a good time to have a NAS or some such.

 

[Boxa786]

I use acronis true image 12 and setup a seperate partition for recovery image, which can be assessed without an os.

 

[dwellman]

Well, there's that for those of us not spending all our money on shoes.