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A last migration to Vista, starting with Windows Easy Transfer

What a week. There are so many things going on at the office right now, with a number of meetings and reviews, and we’re just about to kick off a set of meetings to discuss (the continuing efforts of) how we can improve upon satisfying our customers and partners. (hello to all who are making the trip… dress for cool but sunny spring weather.) More on that next week.


Tonight after spending a rousing evening with 22 eight and nine year olds at my son’s ninth birthday party (at a local “Inflatable Party Zone“) and finally getting our boys to wind down, I began the migration of one of my last Windows XP machines at home to Windows Vista. As I ran Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor previously, I downlaoded and installed Windows Easy Transfer for Windows XP, a utility that helps move the files and settings on your current Windows XP (or even for PCs running Windows 2000 or Vista) to your new Windows Vista PC.



“Download Windows Easy Transfer for your Windows XP-based PC so you can automatically copy your files, photos, music, e-mail, settings, and more to your new Windows Vista based PC. This software enables you to transfer data with Easy Transfer Cables or across a network, external drive, or CD/DVD.” 


My plan is to use Windows Easy Transfer to copy the data to an external drive and then move it to my new computer.


Interestingly enough, after downloading the app, I noticed the following…



What Others Are Downloading



What I found interesting was that the Windows Easy Transfer Companion (Beta) wasn’t listed as a recommended programme on the Windows Easy Transfer download page. When you download this beta app, you’re pointed to “Windows Easy Transfer for Windows XP” as something that others downloaded. Windows Easy Transfer Companion helps transfer programs from a Windows XP PC to a new PC running Windows Vista. Programs can be transferred with an Easy Transfer Cable or over a network connection (I’ll use the latter, as I have a cross-over Ethernet cable handy).


Now it’s off to run the apps on this machine.

2 replies on “A last migration to Vista, starting with Windows Easy Transfer”

MS has seriously screwed up on migration to Vista (which is curious as I read somewhere on the internet that they put a lot of effort into making it easy!).

I used to live in UK but I have emigrated to Spain. I needed to buy a new PC to replace one that failed and it had Vista (Spanish version obviously). After much searching I found a download of Windows Easy Transfer for XP on the old machine and tried to transfer my settings. Did it work OK? Did it heck! I just got the ever so unfriendly comment that the languages on the two systems were incompatibel and Easy Transfer gave up.

There’s really no excuse for this. MS itself has published guidelines to software developers telling them how to avoid problems of directories/folders being differently named because of the language used in the PC, so why couldn’t they follow their own guidelines? Arrogance?

I guess that, if fact, if you don’t live in the good old US of A you don’t really count!

alan dot williamskey at ya dot com

I tried to use a cross-over Ethernet cable, but after several hours it hung up, twice.  I bought a Belkin USB easy transfer cable and was done in a shorter time.

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