My 10 yr old win 7 desktop might be on it's way out. I have 315 GB of data, apps, and OS. It is easy enough to transfer or backup data to ext HD, but program apps is a different matter. I want to be as proactive as I can before the ax falls. There are programs out there that profess to backup and transfer apps and settings, as well as folders.

I could buy a new PC and transfer.
Transfer to ext HD
Use a program to create a disk image
or, lastly, try and download new instances of old programs, and re-activate.

Advice please

Bernie

You might want to look at this free program

It should be able to handle the job..

https://www.easeus.com/pc-transfer/free-pc-mover-for-windows8-7.html

A colleague of mine used this, and was very possitive about it

Thanks Bachus, this is one I looked at, and the features in the paid version are of no interest to me. Even if all of my apps are not usable, it beats doing it manually.

EaseUS make some good programs and the one Bachus mentions is no exception, however, it relies on the apps being compatible with OS they are a being transferred to, and the version of the OS, (Such as a 32 bit OS to a 64 bit OS) so there will probably still be some work involved after the transfer.

An alternative (Before using the program) assuming the Win 7 version is 64 bit is to create an image of your current computer using the Windows Image creator from the inbuilt Win 7 Backup program (Don’t forget to create repair discs) to make sure everything is backed up safe, then go to the Microsoft Win 10 site and choose to upgrade, this will first check for any incompatible programs (And whether they need upgrading) before performing the upgrade to Win 10, when completed you can then use the program above to transfer everything to the new computer as everything should now be compatible. (The upgrade won’t work if going from 32 bit to 64 bit as they are different versions)

The best way is to get your new computer up and running and install the programs afresh (The program activation codes should work on the new computer (Just follow the instructions) although with some you may have to uninstall from the old computer first before you transfer them, then when everything is up and running transfer all you data over and go from there.

The last option is the preferred option as it makes sure everything is clean, but it is time consuming; however on the flip side you can still use your old computer while you are setting up your new computer. (There will be no downtime)

Have fun

Bill

Thanks very much, Bill. This is great information. I shall follow it to the letter.

Bernie

I was about to add my take on this until I read Bill's post properly - and he's said it all!

I can add that I've lso used a number of EASEUS products in the past and found them to be pretty good. The free versions have decent usable features, also their web site does a good job of showing the stuff you get extra in the paid versions.

For data backup / restore using external storage I use FreeFileSync https://freefilesync.org

The above conversations point to the reason I've been hesitant to get anew PC, even though my current one seems to be fading ...
I guess one thing in my favor is that I am currently running Win10 ...
But there is still the fear of the unknown ...

For years all I ever did was buy a good hard drive and do a backup to that hard drive. I also simply copied things I wanted to keep from the old computer to the backup hard drive. It was a simple task to simply do a restore onto the new computer and then drag and drop anything from the backup drive that I copied from the old computer. Has worked just fine for decades.

I've done this with both Windows and Apple computers.

Deane

https://www.carbonite.com

Best program I have ever bought for auto backup..

Deane

I have already backed up all of the data I would keep onto my ext drive. I agree except for my licensed programs. .EXE files need to be specially handled with settings, etc. I have quite a few programs that I need a program like above, or, manually re-download and re-license. I have about ten.

My pc is working fine now, but it took the Windows repair facility to fix it. I took that as a harbinger of evil.