Getting a New Laptop and Transfer ALL What ive Got

[aadave2]

I am thinking of getting a new Laptop and want to Know If its Easy to Transfer ALL What ive got on the Old 1 TO The New 1 INC Desktop Layout Is This Easy to Do?
Thanks.
Dave.

[jazzazz]

If you had a Chromebook, going to a NEW Chromebook, everything would automatically be in the new one, that you have up in the Cloud, Google Drive, and your Gmail acct.

The same would apply to any MACs in their Cloud, ICloud, but if you are talking MicroCrap that I will no longer allow in our house, LOL, I have zero clue, from the LeftCoast of CommieFornia :-), with a forecast of 32.7778C today.

[mikkh]

Simply exchanging drives *might* work, but it's not guaranteed that Windows will adapt to the new hardware and depending on the age/type of the drive, this probably won't be a good thing anyway.

If the old drive is mechanical (i.e. slow) you'll be crippling the new one which mostly come with much faster SSD's nowadays.

There used to be a program inside Windows called transfer settings and data wizard, but they dropped that after Windows 8. You could consider a program called "PCmover" which will achieve the same thing but will cost you just over £40 to buy. There are several other similar programs, but that one is officially endorsed by Microsoft and Intel.

There's also different versions of Windows to consider. The new one *should* come with Windows 11, or at least the promise of a free upgrade from 10, but Windows 11 has been out almost a year now and if it doesn't come with Windows 11 already on it, you're probably buying old stock.

Bottom line is, there's no easy way to do what you want. I've never used "PCmover" so I'm not sure if it can cope with different versions of Windows. I would assume it can though?

I know a lot of people prefer familiar things with computers and one of my more extreme customers will not go beyond clicking icons on the desktop.

Personally I like to embrace the changes and see it as an opportunity for a clean up. We all end up with a mass of programs that were used maybe once or even never and if you reinstall just the programs you definitely use on a regular basis and deem "can't live without" you'll be surprised how few that is.

If you're not that adventurous then PCmover or similar program would probably be your best bet.

I'm with jazzazz though, all I really need is to sign into my Google account and the rest is plain sailing.