Move to new computer

[asdf523]

I bought my father in law a new dell computer with an i7 processor, 1 TB HDD, Windows 7 Ultimate.
Alas he died before he was even able to take it out of the box. He previously had an ancient Pentium 4 computer running XP (just barely).

My mother in law asked if I could transfer all his files (tax records, finances, quicken etc.) to the new computer. I was thinking, would it be possible to partition the HDD on the new computer and clone the drive from his old pentium to the new partition? I don't really want to have to change anything and have no way of being sure of just transferring data files to the new PC or even if they'd be accessible under Windows 7. I just want to have the partition on the new computer to look and function exactly (except hopefully lots faster) as it did on new partition of the new computer.

If this is possible, what tools (software) would best accomplish this? I am certainly not a computer guru so ease of use and installation is a definite must!

Thanks for your ear, and your expertise.

Regards

Scott

 

[narinos]

I bought my father in law a new dell computer with an i7 processor, 1 TB HDD, Windows 7 Ultimate.
Alas he died before he was even able to take it out of the box. He previously had an ancient Pentium 4 computer running XP (just barely).

My mother in law asked if I could transfer all his files (tax records, finances, quicken etc.) to the new computer. I was thinking, would it be possible to partition the HDD on the new computer and clone the drive from his old pentium to the new partition? I don't really want to have to change anything and have no way of being sure of just transferring data files to the new PC or even if they'd be accessible under Windows 7. I just want to have the partition on the new computer to look and function exactly (except hopefully lots faster) as it did on new partition of the new computer.

If this is possible, what tools (software) would best accomplish this? I am certainly not a computer guru so ease of use and installation is a definite must!

Thanks for your ear, and your expertise.

Regards

Scott

Hi asdf523, welcome to the forums!

Seems you have to possibilities:
1. Just connect the old drive to the new computer (plug it inside, or use a USB enclosure). This way, you can access all the files at least, but can't run programs.
2. Use Zinstall XP7 to actually transfer the old programs and file into the new Windows 7. This will give you an mode where you can run all old programs, access files etc. - it is identical to your old computer. However, the software is not free.

Does this help?

 

[Pilk]

Thanks for this Narinos i've never used that application, i am IT technician and haven't looked to in depth with cloning or upgrading utilities, is this program any good? do you still get glitches with regards to the compatibility once the process is done? What i mean is how fail proof is the program?

And asd that is about all you can do unfortunately, if you would like a fail proof free document syncer you can use an application called Cobian Back Up. Please bear in mind this is not migration software like Narino talked about, this will not copy over your programs and allow you to run them.

 

[asdf523]

Thanks guys. I kinda thought there would be problems because of the original installation of operating system and programs were done on a computer with a certain processor, certain type of memory etc. I assume the programs when they were initially installed took this into consideration. Now attempting to transfer everything over to a new box, I'm wondering if this program that Narinos speaks about will take this into account and make necesarry changes as appropriate.

 

[Pilk]

Well only one thing we can do and that is wait and see i guess. are you using the program to do the upgrade?