Laplink PCmover Professional
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Computer Power User
- Warren Ernst
Mar 17, 2010
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If you were a power user in the DOS days, then you probably used Laplink and its special parallel port cable to transfer files too big to fit on floppies between two computers. It was revolutionary. Needless to say, today’s Laplink PCMover is a very different program, yet it performs essentially the same task, but with much more smarts and many more transfer options. (Today’s optional Laplink cable is either USB or Ethernet.) And it’s no less revolutionary.
PCMover lets you transfer all of the personal data files (such as Word docs, MP3s, photos, movies, email, etc.) and optionally all of your programs from one computer (or Windows installation) to another, even between different versions of Windows. In other words, you can transfer all your programs and data from an old computer running WinXP to a new computer running Win7. Alternatively, you can even transfer your apps and data from WinXP to Win7 on the same computer once you reformat the drive and install the new OS. When upgrading a single computer, it’s best to have a portable USB hard drive to act as the “moving van” for your stuff, but multiple computer scenarios can use your LAN, a crossover cable, or the special Laplink USB cable to do a direct transfer.
Although there are some caveats, the amazing thing is that PCMover actually works very well. Data files spread all over a WinXP’s filesystem were neatly organized in Win7’s Libraries in our testing. Complex programs such as Office 2007, Firefox, and Adobe CS4 also transferred over completely, though some needed reactivation. PCMover won’t magically make incompatible software suddenly compatible in Win7, but we found current versions of software generally worked fine.
Certainly you could manually copy your files and reinstall your applications, but PCMover’s common-sense wizards and detailed options let you spend a few minutes going over settings just once, and then the actual transfers (which took a few hours via USB drives) work on their own. If your time is valuable or you don’t trust yourself to find all your data and installation discs, PCMover is worth the price.
