Cheap Laplink PC Mover Moving Kit (Software) (Windows NT 4, Windows XP, Windows XP Professional, Windows 95, Windows 2000, Microsoft XP Media Center Edition) Price

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Customer Reviews of Laplink PC Mover Moving Kit

Easy!
A few years ago, I migrated to a new machine using Aloha Bob's PC Relocator. Pure magic. Unfortunately, PC Relocator seems to have vanished off the market as part of a MS acquisition. Last year, I had to do another migration, which took literally days to do manually, even with the MS transfer utility. <
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>This year, I needed to do the same, and took a chance on PC Mover which Dell is selling. I went from an XP desktop to a Vista notebook. Again, absolutely magic. Absolutely every program and customization, and I have some truly obscure ones, transferred perfectly. Control was excellent, as there were many programs which did not need to go to the new machine. <
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>The only problem I had was in the method of transfer. I have an external HD which I use for backup on both machines. I first tried the method of writing the "moving van" to the HD from the old machine, and then reading if from the new one. Unfortunately, when I tried to read the data, I got an error message saying the file had an invalid header. Rather than trying again, I used the USB bridge cable, which worked flawlessly. One thing which speeds this up is that unlike some programs, PC Mover will take an inventory of the target machine, and selectively move only the programs and data needed, rather than a brute force transfer of all the data, and then sorting it out on the target computer. <
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Do NOT use for XP to Vista migration
I could not get this program to work for an XP to Vista migration. It was supposed to save time. The initial screen said that the transfer would take 7 hours. It halted after 4 hours with over another 4 hours remaining. Laplink never responded to my support request either. Use the included Migration Wizard utility included in Vista. It's faster, it works and is not limited to a single use! LAplink has this priced as a service, but it is SOFTWARE!

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PCmover highly recommended
I bought LapLink PCmover to transfer all the user files and applications from my old PC to my new one. The old PC had many, many applications and the new PC was brand-new. Both run Windows XP. <
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>I think that PCmover did a great job with this task. It saved me hours and hours of time. It's important to understand that the pricing is service-based, not product-based. You don't buy the software for unlimited use. You purchase it on a per-transfer basis. Even at the list price of $50/transfer, I thought it was worthwhile as it transferred everything and saved me lots of time. If you have to do multiple transfers, you can get them cheaper in volume. <
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>I was a bit wary because of some of the negative reviews. But, I found that the product worked very well. I strongly recommend that you read the instructions and follow the on-screen prompts. Moving files between PCs is pretty straight forward. But, moving applications is very tricky. Some applications are tied to your hardware. They may work on your old PC and not your new one. PCmover tries to figure out what these are, but I would recommend that you go through each application to be transferred to make sure that it only transfers the ones you want and doesn't transfer anything machine-specific. <
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>Contrary to some of the reviews I've read, I found that PCmover gave me total control over which files and applications were moved. The recommendations it made were very good, but I did tweak a few things. Also, the transfer worked very well. I had minimal problems on the two transfers I have done now. On one transfer, I had to reinstall the software for my game controllers before they would work. On the other, there was a problem with a driver for my PDA. It's possible that I deselected this from the transfer in reviewing everything. In both cases, it didn't take me long to troubleshoot this and get the software reinstalled. <
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>The good news is that everything else worked. That includes all my little system utilities, Microsoft Office (I had to re-authorize the apps, but they were installed correctly), iTunes (I had to authorize my new PC), and most of my browser settings. The cookies for my various web site logins didn't seem to get transferred, so I had to re-login to a bunch of web site. Not a big inconvenience, and something I would have to do with a new PC anyway. I estimate that PCmover saved me more than one full day of work for each transfer, well worth the price. <
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>I did the transfer over a network. Be prepared for this to take a long time. My biggest transfer was 76GB of data (including a lot of music and email). This took almost 10 hours. But, it worked flawlessly and didn't require any attention once I set it up and started it. <
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>My only other problems had to do with the purchasing process. They have a known problem with IE 7 on their website which makes one software download count as two. So, when you buy the service for the first time, you can only download the software once (not twice, once for each machine). Plan to copy the software to a USB drive or a CD so you can install it on each machine. You'll still have to buy a license key per transfer, but you can put the software onto as many machines as you like in advance of doing the transfers. <
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>The other problem I had in purchasing had to do with LapLink's outsourced purchasing processor, Element 5. They randomly selected my order for manual processing, which was expected to take 12-24 hours. This didn't meet my needs as I was ready to go right then. I contacted LapLink's support and got the phone number of Element 5 (which was nowhere to be found otherwise). Over the phone, I got my purchase put through and was on my way. This delay was needless. It is somewhat out of the control of LapLink, but they still need to make sure that Element 5 processes the payments quickly. I should also mention that I got great response from LapLink on this matter, including from the CEO who I contacted out of frustration. The company is very committed to listening to customers and making their experience a good one. <
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>It may not seem complicated, but moving Windows applications and making them work on a new machine is very tricky and detailed. I was very impressed with how well PCmover worked and have already bought a third license for another transfer. As long as you read the step-by-step instructions and pay attention to what is being transferred, PCmover should work very well to move a lot of data and applications from one PC to another. Highly recommended. <
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