You can just use a Disk copy utility like Ghost or Acronis disk copy to just copy the Old to New disk if you want to keep the old and New OS the same
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can you copy programs from an old computer
I have always figured this is not possible. but technology changes with time. Is it possible to copy a PROGRAM from my prior computer and put it on my new one. Is there any software out there that will find all the 'install' files and do such a thing??????????????
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Answers
No real way to simply copy the program from one machine to another without the installation media.
If you think about it, software companies aren't going to make this easy for you as it would mean people could just copy other peoples apps without buying them.
If you've lost the installation media, then like vikshi says you might be able to use an imaging program, but if your two machines are different hardware, then you're gonna have to pay for it. There is no free imaging softwre out there that will restore to different hardware. You can do a simple backup, restore to new machine, repair isntall and re-patch, but this is flaky.
Tony
Yes, that's exactly what LapLink's PCMover is designed to do ... and it works very well with MOST programs (and virtually all of the most popular ones -- Office, etc.).
http://www.laplink.c
... it can even move programs to a newer OS (e.g. from XP to Vista or Windows 7)
Yes, PCMover can do this, just as a hardware-independant image of the OS can, but I think the question was can you move a single application over, nothing else.
Can PCMover just copy a single application with no other migration at all? I know it says you can select applications to move, but is this part of a full migration or can you just do one application by itself?
There's a BIG difference in a hardware independent image and PCMover. The image moves the entire environment (old OS, etc.). PCMover moves just the applications you select and can cross OS's ... e.g. you can move a program from Windows 98 to Windows 7 (or more likely from XP to 7).
You control just what you want to move ... so yes, you can move a single program. As I noted, it's designed to do exactly that ... you select what you want to move; and it moves it. You can do it with a direct connection between the computers; or with an intermediate device (e.g. an external drive). VERY simple ... and very effective.
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by: jodymcivorPosted on 2009-10-29 at 10:46:30ID: 25696220
This would only work if you could migrate your registry as well, as software installations copy files to the disc, and hook the apps in the registry. From what I understand, there is no perfect way of doing this besides manually installing the apps on the new machine.