How to copy programs, files, and settings to your new PC

Let's say you recently purchased a new computer or laptop, and you'd like to move or copy the installed applications from the old computer to the new one.

Or maybe you purchased a second hard drive that's bigger and faster than your current hard drive, and you'd like to move programs from the old hard drive to the new one.

Windows writes certain keys to your computer's registry when you install a program, and makes associations with other modules and/or installed programs. This makes it impossible to manually transfer these settings to another computer.

Here are two ways to transfer your software programs from one hard drive to another, or from one computer to another:

1. Transfer Software

Laplink PCmover is a migration utility that moves programs, files, and settings from your old PC to your new PC. It's the only program that moves everything (including your installed programs and operating system) from one computer to another.

You'll need to install PCmover on both your old and new computers (handled by a single license) and it will determine which programs, files, and settings need to be moved. When the transfer is complete, your new computer will have the personality and functionality of your old PC plus all of its own pre-installed software.

PCmover works with almost any Windows operating system, from Windows 95 to Vista. You can even use it to migrate your PC to an Intel-based Mac.

One thing I like about PCmover is it's selectivity features. You can choose which applications, folders and files to take with you when you migrate to your new PC or hard drive.

Here's a video review of PCmover on Youtube that walks you through the transfer process:

PCmover can migrate your PC across a network, Laplink USB cable, Laplink parallel cable, Windows Easy Transfer Cable, or any type of removable media that can be read by both PCs. If your computer has multiple users, PCmover gives you the option to migrate some or all of the users at once. The security information about file ownership and access control is preserved for each user.

2. Disk Imaging Software:

Another way to transfer programs to another hard drive or system is by using disk imaging software that creates an exact image (copy) of your hard drive. You can then copy that image to another hard drive, another partition, or another computer system.

For example, Acronis True Image will create an exact image of your hard drive, including all software programs, email messages - even the operating system itself. You can then take this disk image and copy it to another hard drive or system.

Acronis comes with a couple of other benefits including 5 GB of free cloud storage (which you can upgrade to 250 gigs) and a free copy of Disk Director - a powerful program that optimizes your hard drive and manages your hard drive partitions.

With either the migration utility or the disk imaging programs, you'll save a lot of time and money by not having to buy new licenses for software that you already own