5 Simple Steps

1. Take the hard drive out of your old computer.
2. Buy an external hard drive case.
3. Put the drive from your old drive into the case.
4. Buy a new computer.
5. Attach drive to new computer.

Boom. You’re done.

Repeat every 3-4 years.

Any Questions? If so, see below.

“Wait, is that the same as what Migration Assistant does on the Mac?”

Of course not, don’t be absurd.

Migration Assistant on the Mac moves over old programs, old user files and accounts, your preferences, and just about everything else you’d ever imagine or want.

But you don’t want that on Windows.

If you’re like 99% of the Windows-using population (and I am sure that most of the other 1% will post comments here telling me how to avoid this), after a year or so of running Windows you’ve accumulated a bunch of crap you don’t need or want.

(More realistically: some of it was probably on there from day one, because most PCs are sold with a bunch of bundled crap no one wants.)

Your Windows computer has started slowing down, you’re probably getting some weird errors every now and again, if you’re really unlucky, you’re getting popups even when your browser isn’t running.

Do you want to move that all over to a new computer?

Hell no.

And there is no computer program smart enough to do it all for you without carrying over some of the crap.

So wipe the slate clean.

“But what do I do with that hard drive in the case?

Simple: once you attach it to your new computer, it will appear as another drive (probably E: or F:) under “My Computer”

find your “My Documents” folder. It’s probably somewhere like

x:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName\My Documents\

or some such.

Copy (not move) all the files in that folder to your new “My Documents” folder (which I believe is called “Documents” in Vista! Whee! Innovation!)

Tip: make sure your anti-virus software is up to date on your new computer before trying to move files from your old computer

You should abandon everything else in there.

“But what about my email?”

1. If you’ve been using IMAP, then it’s all on the server. Setup your new mail client and it will start syncing your email.

2. If you haven’t been using IMAP, what is wrong with you? Get a GMail account, forward your existing email to it, set it up to send mail as your existing email address, and voilà! You’re done.

3. “I haven’t been using IMAP, how do I get my old email off my old computer?”

   • Let it go. Seriously, do you really need any of it? Sentimental reasons? Are you using email as a task management system?
   • If so, good luck. I’d check Google for an answer. I’ve been using IMAP for a decade now.

4. Did I mention IMAP?

“What about my bookmarks?!?!”

Oh face it, you haven’t looked at those since you bookmarked them in the first place, unless it is somewhere you go frequently (in which case you can probably find it again using Google and bookmark it again).

Move on, already.

(If you really think your bookmarks are that important, try something like Delicious so they aren’t stored on your computer.)

“What about my software?”

Yeah, that’s a big bag of hurt. You could try to move it over, but most likely you’ve got some outdated versions of software and a bunch of programs you never use.

First of all, checkout Evernote as a place to store your registration codes, etc online so you don’t have to go looking for them.

I never reinstall software until I realize that I want to use it. Saves me a lot of headaches.

One Last Tip

Sign up for a free Dropbox account, and put your most important files on it. You get 2gb of space for free, which is most likely far more than you’ll ever need for your word processing, PDFs, etc. (I’m not talking about your MP3 collection, pictures, or movies, I’m just talking about regular files.)

If you’ve got a lot of other media files, bite the bullet and checkout Drobo. The initial investment is expensive, but not having to worry about lost files is worth a whole lot (ask anyone who has been through it. Drobo is a lot cheaper than data recovery off a dead hard drive).

More?

Learn more about Migration Assistant at O’Reilly Mac Dev Center.

Oh, and if you buy a Mac instead of a new PC, Apple will migrate your data for you. They will probably be a lot more sympathetic about your bookmarks and email too, and will probably know how to move them over.