Best way to set up a new PC to match existing old PC - possible?


  1. Posts : 175
    Windows 10 Home ver 2004
       #1

    Best way to set up a new PC to match existing old PC - possible?


    My current PC (Win 10) has 4G RAM and is +10 yrs old. According to Google the RAM is not upgradeable. I am considering upgrading to a new PC.

    All my music/photos/documents are backed up via MR to external HDD.

    I am dreading setting up a new PC. There is so much stuff to download & then setup;

    • All my apps and their settings
    • Chrome Brower and extensions
    • Windows settings (Themes, Network, etc)
    • File history settings
    • Controlled folder settings
    • Microsoft Office 2016
    • etc


    Is there an easy way? Guess I can’t use my system image from old PC and use it on new PC?
    Or do I just have to start from scratch on the new PC?

    How do you guys do this?
    Last edited by Jeddie; 14 Nov 2019 at 19:23.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 23
    Windows 10 Professional
       #2

    Just completed a migration from Windows 7 to 10. My old machine has files from Windows 95. Some really old programs actually installed from disc. Save everything on the existing drive to folders on an external one and copy them to the new drive. You will need to install all programs again to have a "clean" installation. As far as settings and other preferences - those will be done manually as you go.
    There is a program to do some of the process but I prefer hands on. All of my Music and Picture files were easy to copy over. Documents will not be a problem either.
    Hope this helps.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 8,057
    windows 10
       #3

    Assuming your old pc is on 10 if you tell it to sync setting and login to the new pc with same username it will sync a lot of widows setting for you along with onedrive
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 7,128
    Windows 10 Pro Insider
       #4

    If your going from a desktop to a desktop you could try swapping the hard drives. Make a image of the old HDD first. I have done it a few times without any problems.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 7,871
    Windows 11 Pro 64 bit
       #5

    You could swap the hard drives as mentioned above. Else you could image the old PC's partitions to an external drive and recover that to the new PC using Macrium Reflect Free - you have to boot the new PC from a Reflect USB recovery drive to do this.

    Windows 10 is quite good at sorting out the resulting missing drivers but you may have to install some yourself. The paid for version of Reflect has a redeploy on new hardware feature which gives further help.

    If that doesn't work then you will need to do a clean install and configure the new PC. Note which programs you need to install from the old PC - Belarc Advisor is useful for capturing what programs you have. You can mount a Reflect image of the old PC, mount the partition containing user files as a virtual drive and copy those over. I also copy over the desktop in C:\Users\{myname}\Desktop so you can configure the desktop.

    Does your new PC have a Windows 10 licence? If not you might be able to transfer the licence from the old PC if you have a retail licence.
      My Computers


 

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