::: SIGH :::
OK...this started out to be a really nice anniversary present for my wife. New build, awesome speed machine, with good video capabilities.
Her old machine was one of those AIO HP mini-tower jobbies that was OK, back when it came with Win7 on it. It was upgraded to Win10 just before the cut-off date, and has gotten to be increasingly slower since then. At this point, it is a real pain to work with--particularly so for my wife, who is somewhat sight-challenged.
The new build is a μATX MB with maxxed-out memory and SSDs for local storage and W10-Pro boot.
Now, she uses Edge, Firefox, AND Chrome, for her browsers; and has a butt-load of music and photos stored in her user directory. The music and photos are easy to migrate over, and I have an image of her old HDD to work with in pushing those over a USB 3.0 cable.
It's the user settings, stored passwords, and all the customized stuff that is making me pull my hair out--where is it all stored, and what is safe to transfer from the old installation to the new installation?
Microsoft, in their infinite pseudo-wisdom (and greed), has dumped any migration tool that actually worked in anything approaching a sane and predictable manner, and using their cloud fluff offerings are out of the question, according to my wife.
I work with Linux daily--never microsoft (my NT days are FAR BEHIND me)--and I have no solid approach for dealing with this sort of thing. Bak in the day, it was move the data files and let the user reconfigure their preferential settings.
::: Huge sigh :::
This didn't go over so well, when I hooked-up her new machine and she said, where's my stuff? Moving her files didn't help, and now I'm stuck trying to figure this out (and Google is no damn help), because most of what I find is mostly BS add copy.
Does anyone have direct, hands-on, experience with some sort of migration tool, utility, magic incantation, that will allow me to selectively move things like browser profiles, bookmarks, and personalized windows settings, and anything else I am unaware of, from an old installation of W10 to a new installation of W10--on a user by user basis?
Can anybody give me a recommendation that I can actually trust?
###################
###### UPDATE ######
###################
I'm deep in searches, and have run across a recent iteration of the old Lap-Link program that I presumed to be long dead--"Laplink PCmover Ultimate 11".
If this will save me some time transferring settings & browser configurations, and get her using her new machine faster, I'll pony-up for it; however, I really don't trust what might amount to astroturfing when it comes to positive comments about it. (It is distributed as a "single use" executable, which sux.)
Has anybody used said Lap-Link and found it to be worth what they spent for it?
OK...this started out to be a really nice anniversary present for my wife. New build, awesome speed machine, with good video capabilities.
Her old machine was one of those AIO HP mini-tower jobbies that was OK, back when it came with Win7 on it. It was upgraded to Win10 just before the cut-off date, and has gotten to be increasingly slower since then. At this point, it is a real pain to work with--particularly so for my wife, who is somewhat sight-challenged.
The new build is a μATX MB with maxxed-out memory and SSDs for local storage and W10-Pro boot.
Now, she uses Edge, Firefox, AND Chrome, for her browsers; and has a butt-load of music and photos stored in her user directory. The music and photos are easy to migrate over, and I have an image of her old HDD to work with in pushing those over a USB 3.0 cable.
It's the user settings, stored passwords, and all the customized stuff that is making me pull my hair out--where is it all stored, and what is safe to transfer from the old installation to the new installation?
Microsoft, in their infinite pseudo-wisdom (and greed), has dumped any migration tool that actually worked in anything approaching a sane and predictable manner, and using their cloud fluff offerings are out of the question, according to my wife.
I work with Linux daily--never microsoft (my NT days are FAR BEHIND me)--and I have no solid approach for dealing with this sort of thing. Bak in the day, it was move the data files and let the user reconfigure their preferential settings.
::: Huge sigh :::
This didn't go over so well, when I hooked-up her new machine and she said, where's my stuff? Moving her files didn't help, and now I'm stuck trying to figure this out (and Google is no damn help), because most of what I find is mostly BS add copy.
Does anyone have direct, hands-on, experience with some sort of migration tool, utility, magic incantation, that will allow me to selectively move things like browser profiles, bookmarks, and personalized windows settings, and anything else I am unaware of, from an old installation of W10 to a new installation of W10--on a user by user basis?
Can anybody give me a recommendation that I can actually trust?
###################
###### UPDATE ######
###################
I'm deep in searches, and have run across a recent iteration of the old Lap-Link program that I presumed to be long dead--"Laplink PCmover Ultimate 11".
If this will save me some time transferring settings & browser configurations, and get her using her new machine faster, I'll pony-up for it; however, I really don't trust what might amount to astroturfing when it comes to positive comments about it. (It is distributed as a "single use" executable, which sux.)
Has anybody used said Lap-Link and found it to be worth what they spent for it?
Last edited: