Converting to a New Computer

[Jim Becker]

Yes, no surprise that some older Mac apps will not work under 10.12. That said, Mac apps install differently than Windows applications and at least are easier to move by simply copying them in many cases.

As to drives, my 27" iMac is a Mid-2010. I recently installed a nice "half-terabyte" SSD as the primary and reformatted the original 1TB platter as an auxiliary onboard drive for photo storage. (in addition to my externals) The work was easy and even with that age, the interface was "current" outside of a slightly lower transfer speed. I have 16gb of RAM in it, runs the latest OS, is fast enough to do even the photo processing in Lightroom and Photoshop that I handle a few times a week and and other than a little slight fading of the backlight on the right side of the screen, it runs like it's brand new. I plan on getting at least another year out of it, assuming the display hangs in there. Oh, and I run Win10 in Parallels for support of Quicken. (The Mac version still isn't up to snuff...)

But that's getting away from what I think the OP intended for this thread...there are ways to get what you have on the old over onto the new and it may be worth considering utilities that are geared to do that rather than having to completely reinstall and rebuild manually.

[Chuck Wintle]

Just asking - Isn't it possible to take the hard drive out of the old computer, install it in the new computer and turn on the power and let er boot up?

Yes it is possible ans I have done it myself. Usually it will boot up and begin to look for updated drivers for the new hardware.

[Chuck Wintle]

I use a Windows computer - a couple of them, actually. I got a great deal from a guy on a lightly used i7 computer with 32G of RAM and decided to convert my primary computer to that one. Problem is, I have a LOT of programs and data on my computer and moving things over is a real pain.

I found this program by a company called Zinstall by the name of Win-Win that claims it will move your old computer to a new computer so that the new computer looks exactly like the old one. I used it and wanted to pass along the info to others who might face the same problem.

It works with a few issues. For all your "purchased" programs you have to go through authentication again, so make sure you have all the codes - but at least you don't have to install everything again. I had a problem with Adobe Acrobat where it couldn't access my scanner and had to un-install Acrobat and re-install it again. For Photoshop, I had to disable the license on my old computer and move it to my new computer.

But the new computer really does have everything that was on the old one and it "looks" just like the old one. And the old one is unchanged.

The down side? It's expensive - a bit over $100 and it's only good for one transfer. They guarantee the transfer and will work with you if you have problems. If it doesn't work, they say they they will refund you.

I tried another program by a company called Easus - ToDo PCTrans, if I remember correctly. It was junk - didn't work at all.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass that along. I'm going to use my old machine as a Linux learning machine. Just thought it was time for me to learn a bit about Linux.

Mike

[And just one more tip. An i7 doesn't do anything for you if all you do is mail and Internet access. Those are limited by disk access speed and Internet access speed. Where an i7 really shines is in dealing with photos and video and (I assume) playing video games (I don't play). Otherwise, stick with an i5 with an SSD.]

[One more thing: LapLink makes a product and from reviews on the web, it appears that the product sticks bloatware on your new computer as part of the transfer.]

you are right it is expensive.

[Curt Harms]

Just asking - Isn't it possible to take the hard drive out of the old computer, install it in the new computer and turn on the power and let er boot up?

That actually IS possible with linux distros if you have no proprietary drivers installed or if you disable the proprietary drivers before removing the drive. Linux has a different architecture and driver model than Windows. If I had proprietary Nvidia or AMD drivers installed and swap the drive to a machine without Nvidia or AMD hardware it can get ugly. There are pluses and minuses to both systems.