Transfer Program from old PC to new PC?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fred Finisterre
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Fred Finisterre

Any recommendations for software that can transfer an application (and all
it's .ini's, .dll's etc) and it's data from one PC to another? (95 to XP)

Must use floppies for the transfer, due to no USB or CD Burner on the old
PC. Must be able to span the whole things over several floppies easily and
rebuild the whole lot on the new PC.

Can't use Direct Cable Connection for various reasons.

Thanks,

Fred.
 
Fred said:
Any recommendations for software that can transfer an application (and all
it's .ini's, .dll's etc) and it's data from one PC to another? (95 to XP)

Must use floppies for the transfer, due to no USB or CD Burner on the old
PC. Must be able to span the whole things over several floppies easily and
rebuild the whole lot on the new PC.

Can't use Direct Cable Connection for various reasons.
Click to expand...

Get an ethernet PCI card for a couple of £, install that and do the
transfer that way?

If you *have to* use floppies, something like winzip, winrar etc. can
span the zip/rar across floppies, but you'll have to gather all the
required files yourself in the first place. Why don't you just copy
over the installation and install it to the other PC?
 
Why don't you just copy
over the installation and install it to the other PC?
Click to expand...

It's OLD software and the original install disks are missing.

Cheers,

Fred.
 
Fred said:
Why don't you just copy



It's OLD software and the original install disks are missing.
Click to expand...

Have a look to see if the original installer wrote an install log
somewhere .... some of the better programs do/did.
 
Why don't you just copy

It's OLD software and the original install disks are missing.
Click to expand...

I ran into a similar situation with an old accounting program that a
client was using. They lost the original installation disk.

I created the exact same directory struction as was on the old computer
and copied all of the files to the new computer. I then exported the
Registry entries for the app and imported them on the new computer.

I ran the program and each time it complained about a missing DLL, I
simply copied the DLL from the SYSTEM32 folder of the old computer over
to the new one until the app ran.

Took me a total of 30 minutes, but it worked.
 
BB has one solution IF that software actually registered anything
of importance in the 95 registry. many programs did nothing in the way
of the registry. Just copy the directories over.
 
It is very inexpensive, and easy, to set up a communication path between 2
computers. The simplest way is to use a crossover cable connected to a
network interface card in each computer - and then set up file sharing.

Alternatively, you could temporarily mount the HD from your old PC into your
new PC as a slave, then copy the files onto your new HD.

A word of warning. When you try to run the program on your new PC, unless
every file is in the same named folder and on the same drive letter as
before, the program will not run. That is why it is almost always better to
reinstall the program, rather than just transfer its' component parts.

In your case, though, the original install disks are apparently no longer
available. If the program is not too old, you might be able to download it
from the program creator. If it is too old, perhaps it is time to upgrade to
a newer version.

By the way, it is almost never a good idea to try to transfer the files for
any program of significant size with floppy disks. You could still be doing
the transfer a year from now!
 
Fred said:
Any recommendations for software that can transfer an application (and all
it's .ini's, .dll's etc) and it's data from one PC to another? (95 to XP)

Must use floppies for the transfer, due to no USB or CD Burner on the old
PC. Must be able to span the whole things over several floppies easily and
rebuild the whole lot on the new PC.

Can't use Direct Cable Connection for various reasons.

Thanks,

Fred.
Click to expand...
You should also be aware that some older programs that ran fine under 95
are not compatible with xp. You may have to run the compatability wizard
in order to even run the older program on the newer OS.
 
Bad Bubba said:
I ran into a similar situation with an old accounting program that a
client was using. They lost the original installation disk.

I created the exact same directory struction as was on the old computer
and copied all of the files to the new computer. I then exported the
Registry entries for the app and imported them on the new computer.

I ran the program and each time it complained about a missing DLL, I
simply copied the DLL from the SYSTEM32 folder of the old computer over
to the new one until the app ran.

Took me a total of 30 minutes, but it worked.
Click to expand...

Don't you not have to test *every* function of the programme with realistic
data? Otherwise, how can you be reasonably sure that they are not going to
call you in a panic when they can't run their year-end update or something?

This sort of thing is a *really big* problem. I typically spend a couple of
days migrating an old PC to a new one. It's by far the biggest cost of new
hardware in an office. All these programmes like TransferMyPC are pretty
useless.

Going back to your accountancy programme, is it any more reliable if you do
it differently, as follows? Scrub the disk on the new machine. Make a
bootable image of the old disk on the new disk, including the accountancy
programme. Then install the new version of windows over the top of the old
one.
 
"GB" said:
Don't you not have to test *every* function of the programme with realistic
data? Otherwise, how can you be reasonably sure that they are not going to
call you in a panic when they can't run their year-end update or something?
Click to expand...
Not much of a problem if you have archived the disk (and preferably
exported the Registry) from the old machine - you'll just have to copy a
few more files over.
 
Fred said:
Any recommendations for software that can transfer an application (and all
it's .ini's, .dll's etc) and it's data from one PC to another? (95 to XP)

Must use floppies for the transfer, due to no USB or CD Burner on the old
PC. Must be able to span the whole things over several floppies easily and
rebuild the whole lot on the new PC.

Can't use Direct Cable Connection for various reasons.
Click to expand...

Can you upload the files from the old computer to disk space at your
ISP, then download to the new computer?
 
GB said:
Don't you not have to test *every* function of the programme with realistic
data? Otherwise, how can you be reasonably sure that they are not going to
call you in a panic when they can't run their year-end update or something?

This sort of thing is a *really big* problem. I typically spend a couple of
days migrating an old PC to a new one. It's by far the biggest cost of new
hardware in an office. All these programmes like TransferMyPC are pretty
useless.

Going back to your accountancy programme, is it any more reliable if you do
it differently, as follows? Scrub the disk on the new machine. Make a
bootable image of the old disk on the new disk, including the accountancy
programme. Then install the new version of windows over the top of the old
one.
Click to expand...

That would normally be the easiest procedure to save everything but
win95-->XP isn't a supported upgrade path. He'd first have to upgrade the
Win95 system to Win98/SE/ME or Windows 2000.
 
"Matt" said:
Can you upload the files from the old computer to disk space at your
ISP, then download to the new computer?
Click to expand...
Much easier to use a null-modem cable.
 
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:47:57 +0000, Papa wrote:


The easiest way to copy programs using floppies is PKzip with the spanning
function. This will zip large archives across multiple floppies. WinRar
will also span multiple files to archive files for floppies after you
restrict the output .rar file sizes to 1.44mb. Registry entries are a
problem and I don't think the W95 entries match XP registry format.
 
Could you take the hard disk out of the source PC and pop it in the
destination?

Probably no extra cabling required, as you could unplug the CD-ROM in
the destination machine temporarily.
 
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