Let PCmover Migrate for You

PC Magazine/Extreme Tech  - Joel Durham, Jr
Apr 25, 2007
Link to article

It's migration time again (for the second time in a month), and hopefully Laplink's PCmover will make it easier than going through the whole accursed process manually.

If you've been following ExtremeTech for the last few weeks, you might have sensed the agony as I've been trying to migrate from an old, worn, dried up workstation to a nice 'n' spiffy new one. After employing Windows Easy Transfer to try to migrate from the old XP installation to a fresh Vista drive, I became a little nutty when the utility proved to be less convenient than it should have been.

Sadly, the computer that I'd chosen as my new production machine, which had worked perfectly as a gaming PC for months, developed an intermittent hang. After a week of fruitless troubleshooting, and because this home-built PC didn't come with a warranty, I finally decided to scrap it and build up another one out of newer parts. Hence, the second migration.

Now, the problem with this is that I'd set up the new system just the way I liked it, with all the apps and data moved over and all the settings tweaked to my idea of perfection. I dreaded the thought of going through that whole process again, and I wanted to avoid using Windows Easy Transfer like the plague. Enter PCmover, an application that promises to migrate everything—p rograms, data, and settings—from an old PC to a new one, even across operating systems. I tested PCmover thoroughly, performing the migration described above, plus several others.

PCmover versus Windows Easy Transfer

PC gearheads tend to start fresh when they move to a new operating system. A good system purge does wonders for the responsiveness of said system. Still, any user is likely to use some of the same applications in the new OS install. Furthermore, data cries out to be transferred—we're talking everything from documents and boring banking information to game saves, music files, digital photos, and so on. What was once an OS upgrade quickly becomes a data migration.

PCmover wants to make your migration simpler. Why would anyone pay $50 to $60 for a migration program when Windows Vista comes with its own software designed for the same purpose?

Let's compare the two: [To see comparison chart, and other graphics, follow link to original article on Tech Extreme Site.] 

Windows Easy Transfer is designed primarily to migrate from a Windows XP installation to a Vista machine, though it can also do Vista to Vista. PCmover goes from any older version of Windows, all the way back to '95, to any newer version of Windows.

The documentation states that incompatibilities do occur. In some cases, a program installed on an older Windows might not work on a later one; if that's the case, it's not PCmover's fault that the program fails after the migration.

Using a bevy of hard drives, we ran several migrations from one Vista computer to another; we also ran a few XP-to-Vista migrations to see how they would fare. 

Migrating with PCmover

Transferring from one system to another via PCmover was an amazingly simple and pleasant experience. It managed to take full programs, hurl them through wires from one system to another, and—this is the important part—nearly everything worked once it got there.

PCmover doesn't offer much in the way of customization. In fact, it hardly offers any customization at all. You can make a few adjustments, such as whether or not to transfer Word settings, or IE toolbars, and a few other things, but that's about it.

The program is designed for one thing and one thing only: to transfer everything on your hard drive, save a few odds and ends, from an old computer to a new one; the end result is that you have a seat at the new PC and all your stuff, everything you're used to, is there. It's as if you're sitting at the same computer, albeit with different hardware and possibly a different operating system.

PCmover does its thing in stages. When you start the program, you run through a few simple steps before it gets going. You choose a transfer method, map partitions from your old hard drives to your new ones (only if you have multiple partitions), and set a few basic options. Then the program is off and running.

It takes a snapshot of the old system and determines what's to be moved. It will not move device drivers or other hardware intensive stuff, some security programs (like antivirus and antispam programs, which you should disable before the move anyway) and it won't overwrite anything that's already on the new PC. It will move all of your programs, most of your settings, all of your data files, your Internet settings, and so on.

To facilitate the transfer, it builds a "moving van," which is a collection of stuff to crank on over to the new computer. It compresses the data as it goes, and "unloads" the van on the new PC.

Time in Transit

Depending on the method of transfer you choose (and, of course, the amount of data to be moved), the time it takes to migrate varies. We ran three identical migrations between the two test computers, one using our 100Mbps network, one using a USB 1.1 cable, and one using a USB 2.0 cable. The transfer moved about 75.4GB of data in 6 hours and 34 minutes (Ethernet), 21 hours and 8 minutes (USB 1.1), and 2 hours and 15 minutes (USB 2.0) respectively. Lacking a gigabit switch, we couldn't test the transfer over a 1000Mbps network, but it's likely that Gigabit transfers would be preferable for best performance.

Results and Best Practices

To be perfectly honest, we were not expecting the PCmover migration to go nearly as well as it did. In fact, in five migrations (three Vista-to-Vista, and two XP-to-Vista), the results were amazing—every single time.

The Vista-to-Vista migrations went the smoothest. We transferred music, photos, and several games and applications including Office 2007, Corel Paint Shop Pro XI, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Supreme Commander, Command & Conquer 3, Company of Heroes, Battlefield 2142 (download edition)and Half-Life 2: Episode One.

The results were outstanding. Everything landed exactly where it belonged. Conveniences like the sidebar, Internet bookmarks, and Office settings were intact. All of our email and contact information made the transition. Even the desktop wallpaper came up properly.

There were a few hiccups getting everything to work. We had to run a quick repair and then reactivate PSP XI, and Office 2007 required a repair installation and a reactivation. In all fairness, Laplink does warn that some serial numbers will need be reentered, and some software reactivated. Nothing, however, required a reinstall.

The games fared just fine. For the Steam and EA Link games, we had to reenter login information to the pertinent online services, but the games (HL2:E1 and BF2142) ran perfectly. The rest of the games ran fine. All game saves were in place.

For the XP-to-Vista installation, we didn't have any versions of Office installed, but we did rock with most of the same games, Paint Shop Pro 7, FrontPage 2003, and a full cadre of Outlook Express contacts and email. Again, everything made the transition perfectly. We had to do a bit of tweaking to get the Outlook Express stuff to be recognized by Windows Mail. Bookmarks and cookies went smoothly from Internet Explorer 6 to IE7. All of the games ran fine, and so did FrontPage after a quick repair. Again, nothing required a full installation.

In all, PCmover performed as advertised, which is a rare thing in today's software environment. While all software publishers brag about how amazing their goods are, Laplink actually has reason to.

Best Practices

Through experimentation with PCmover I did find a few procedures to run through and habits to develop before engaging in a migration.

First, read the Quick Start guide [PDF] that comes on the CD-ROM. Do what it says: Uninstall your security programs and lower your firewall.

Uninstall anything you don't want moved! PCmover moves everything it finds on your computer's hard drives, so if there are known incompatibilities between a program you're running on Windows 98 and Windows Vista, lose it before you migrate.

Have the new computer as pristine and virgin as possible. Don't install anything before the migration, and uninstall any preinstalled software that you don't want. That'll reduce the chances of a conflict. For example, PCmover won't overwrite anything, so if you have a mailbox file on your new computer and one on your old one that you want moved over, things might get hairy. Don't do anything to your new computer that you don't absolutely have to.

Use a USB 2.0 cable if you can. The difference in time is so drastic that it's actually worth it to purchase a USB 2.0 card for an older PC that only has USB 1.1, simply for the purpose of migrating your data.

Uninstall any hardware helper apps on the old computer. One problem I had was that, while PCmover didn't touch the graphics card drivers, it did move ATI's Catalyst Control Center from the old to the new. Since the driver wasn't loading, I couldn't uninstall CCC through normal means; I had to surgically delete it and remove it from the registry.

Finally, if you're using a USB cable, run MSCONFIG on each computer before you run PCmover.

Set each to start up in diagnostic mode; that'll turn off all of the startup programs and services. Enable the Plug and Play service so that the computers can detect the cable, and leave everything else alone.

Final Thoughts

In the nightmare world of PC migration, PCmover is a rare pleasant dream. It makes moving from an old computer to a new one surprisingly effortless; you simply install the software, prep the machines, click a few dialog boxes and go.

Now that you've completed your migration, speed up Windows Vista.

The Quick Start guide is remarkably thorough for such a document, and tells you everything you need to know before you get started. It's no fault of the software if a user fails to read it and runs into problems; it prevented what could have been many headaches.

Is it worth the money? That depends: How much is your time worth? A painstaking migration done manually can take a couple of days, and you can still miss stuff. A PCmover migration takes hours, and doesn't miss anything.

As for my PC problems? It looks like the migration is finally, finally complete.