Is there a simple way to import files and programs from an old computer to a new one?

Answer 1

One option is to remove the hard drive from the old machine and change the jumper setting (these are small pins on the back of the drive with a small clip that makes a connection between 2 pins- there are usually 3 basic settings marked "M- for master, "S"- for slave & "CS"- for cable select) to either slave or cable select then install the drive on the second connector (closer to the middle of the cable) on the IDE cable (the flat multi-wire cable with rectangular connectors) and transfer the files through windows explorer. Or, instead of messing with jumpers, just unplug your CD/DVD drive and plug the other hard drive there temporarily. For SATA drives, just plug the drive from the old machine into an open SATA socket.

If the new machine is a Win XP or Vista based machine then you can also use the "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" function.

You can burn your files to DVDs.

Another option is to get a USB flash drive. It is a small device and comes in various amounts of memory space. A 128 MB or a 256 MB can store more data than you can imagine and should help you in transferring your data. An external hard drive is another option. Then just copy and paste.

You can do it by configuring FTP on one and client FTP on other. Otherwise it can be possible through network device.

Transferring programs from one computer to another is a difficult process. However, there are 2 programs that I know that do it. See the links in the section below to get them. Laplink's PC mover is one commercially available application that should do the job well though. If you don't want to fork out the cash for PC mover there is a beta of a program out there called "Pick-me-App." It can't transfer all applications yet, but it works pretty well for a lot of applications.