Question file transfer between two laptops

[Tepid Mess]

Apologies if this question is in the wrong place. I do not think it is laptop-specific, but it is not clearly a pure Win10 nor Win7 question either.

I have two working laptops. One is Windows 7, the other Windows 10. For security reasons, I no longer connect the Windows 7 machine to the internet or any wi-fi, etc. The Windows 10 laptop connects and is used like any of the million other similar machines in this world.

I want to transfer files between the two. I may have reason to send things both ways, not just from the 7 to the 10.

It's mostly photos and videos, but other things too. It often might be a lot of small photos. But it could also be a handful of rather large videos.

My question is, what is the best way? I think in this context, best=fastest.

I know I could use USB sticks, or external hard drives. That will work of course, but it's a little cumbersome and possibly slow.

I have one of those modified ethernet cables used back in the day to go direct machine to machine. Do those still work? Any gotchas?

What else? Any other new, good, or preferred ways of doing this nowadays?

Fyi, nothing is currently backed up on the cloud, and no cloud solution is possible anyway due to my permanent disconnection of the Win7 machine from the outside world.

And to be absolutely clear, these are not wholesale moves. This could be onesie-twosie on an ongoing basis.

Thank you!!

 

[lvt]

Fyi, nothing is currently backed up on the cloud, and no cloud solution is possible anyway due to my permanent disconnection of the Win7 machine from the outside world.

If your Win7 machine has no connection at all, your only permanent solution is to use a crossover cable.

 

[Tepid Mess]

If your Win7 machine has no connection at all, your only permanent solution is to use a crossover cable.

It could connect, and of course it used to. But when Windows 7 went EOS I made sure never to connect to the internet again because I could not tolerate the risk of any kind of breach or hack that would not be addressed.

So the capability is there, it is my choice not to use it. I'm not sure if that might affect your answer or not, but it's probably good that I clear that up.

Thank you.

 

[Tepid Mess]

Uh oh, I just realized something. Silly me, my newer (Windows 10) machine does not have any ethernet port. Is there such a thing as a USB crossover cable?

 

[Tepid Mess]

And after posting I'm now reading about the possibility of connecting both computers (wired or wireless) to a wi-fi router that is NOT connected to the internet. I didn't know you could do that. How's that for an option? Slow? Or decent?

 

[lvt]

Uh oh, I just realized something. Silly me, my newer (Windows 10) machine does not have any ethernet port. Is there such a thing as a USB crossover cable?

There is USB to Ethernet port adapter, it should work the same way.

 

[lvt]

And after posting I'm now reading about the possibility of connecting both computers (wired or wireless) to a wi-fi router that is NOT connected to the internet. I didn't know you could do that. How's that for an option? Slow? Or decent?

If your laptops are not too far each from other, and you want to transfer large files, using cable is a good choice as wireless speed is usually unstable, especially when you have multiple connected devices.

 

[hang-the-9]

You are overthinking the Win 7 security risk of having the computer connected to your network. Unless you run a largish company, work for the CIA, have a few million in the bank that people know about, don't worry about it as long as you keep to the normal save internet use practices.

Or upgrade the thing to Win 10.

The biggest security threat to people is now so much what they are using but what they are doing.