Back-up programs

I'm moving to a new computer, but I don't want to have to go through all the busy, busy work of re-installing every single program and I am woundering if anyone here knows of a good back-up program that will allow me to move things like installed programs and such to my new program.

And I have already considered ghosting, but that would not work because the old computer is single proccessor, but the new system is dual Proccessor, so the XP install had to be configured differently, a ghost or anything simular wouldn't work.

So, anyone here know a easy way to get everything from the old computer onto the new one without it being a huge pain in the butt?

(for those that didn't catch it, the operating system is Windows XP)

>>1

Prepare your ass, 'cuz it's gonna be pained.

I know of no such software, and I'd be surprised if such a thing existed.  And, even if it *did* exist, I'd be even *more* surprised if it worked. 

Consider, as a "for example," what would happen if any one of your programs toggled a registry key, or an .ini file, or a .config file flag, if it's installed on a single-proc versus multi-proc system.  Ie, what if one of your programs exhibited the same behavior as windows?  What if they all did?  How is this magical program going to know what configuration information to pull out from where?  What users?  What should it do for users that don't exist on the new machine?  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Such software would be error-prone at best.  Your best bet, to save yourself *loads* of grief in the future when you discover that nothing works, is to just re-install the software.  I typically consider a full computer re-setup to be a weekend activity, or at least 2-3 weeknights.

>>1
If you have so much software that reinstalling it all will be a pain, maybe you should get rid of some of the crap.

Also, most copy-protected software does not tolerate being moved between computers.

Well, ok then.
Thanks for the help.

I guess I better get cracking and just do it the hard way.

Use Norton Ghost. Look it up.

>>5 can't read.

Plug your new drive in as slave or cable select in 2nd position
In a DOS window type: xcopy c:\*.* d:\ /c/h/e/r/k/y
where "d" is the new drive assigned letter
PROFIT!!

You can copy your PROFILE over, this can make it much easier to migrate, but you'll still need to install all your software on the new system.  There are a few steps to make this happen first.

First, create your new profile on your new computer, log out completely (you may possible even need a third computer to do this with, because if you copy from your old computer, windows tends to lock it for reading, and on the new one it'll lock it for writing...) and delete all the conents of this newly created profile's directory.  Then just drop the contents of the old profile into the new profile's directory (make sure you don't drop the folder containing the profile into the new directory or it won't work, it has to be the contents of it, or you could alternately just name your new profile the same thing and over-write the folder, though you will still need to delete everything in your new profile first) and install all of your old software (make sure you install it outside of your old profile) and log into your old account on the new computer.

You'll feel right at home right away.