Move2Mac is utterly useless!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

If you’re upgrading from one Macintosh to a newer Macintosh, Apple provides a very nice tool with Migration Assistant. But if you’re trying to get all the files from a Windows machine, Apples has nothing. They are running an ad campaign urging people to do so, so you might think they would provide a tool, but no. Instead, they link to a 3rd party tool, Move2Mac. Which is:

Useless
Expensive
A rip off
Horrible support
Opaque

Based on Apple’s recommendation, I bought this program. I should have suspected that things were not going to be pleasant when the link was broken. But I figured “these things happen” and deleted the rest of the URL and got to their home page, and bought the download. I got an e-mail receipt, but there was no link to download or authorization code. It became clearer that I was not dealing with the most competent company around. So I called. I spent a full hour on the phone in “Your call is important to us” hell (but not so important that we’ll hire extra people to answer the fucking phone) listening to Enya’s Sail Away on eternal repeat.

While listening, I had duplicated all 4 user names from the Windows machine and installed Office and Creative Suite 4 on the Mac. All users were set as Administrators. And still I held. After a half an hour, the phone got answered, by an asshole who immediately dumped me back into the hold queue.

By the time the phone got answered again, I was thoroughly enraged. The guy sent an e-mail with a link to the Windows program to allegedly collect the data, a Mac program to allegedly place the data and a authorization code.

Then the fun really began. I installed the Windows program, entered the code (which could NOT be pasted in from the e-mail - another bad sign) and the program started running. Well, the “collecting data” bar was moving. But it gave no indication what data it was collecting. It just had a cutesy message to “Relax” worthy of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints division. The only way to tell that anything thing was going on was to look at the constantly dropping available free space on C:.

Went off, had lunch, came back, still not finished…while I was waiting, I started searching for reviews on this product. Not good. I should have read them beforehand, but Apple had recommended it on their support site!

Still, I thought I might be one of the lucky ones. Finally, it completed.

I started the restore on the Mac, found the shared drive on the Windows machine (I was doing this via the network). It started chugging, again, completely opaquely. I went home for the day, and checked in with the customer.

NOT ONE MOTHERFUCKING FILE TRANSFERRED!

Also, these rip-off artists will not offer any refund, AND the software cannot be used twice! Yes, that’s right, this $40 program cannot be used on two different computers!

Takes forever to fail to do what it is supposed to do!

Do not use this piece of shit, do not buy anything from this company! And Apple lost a huge amount of credibility for linking to this shit, forget that they don’t offer the tool to do it themselves!

ARGH!!!

2

Chargebacks on downloadable software are nearly impossible for the merchant to defend. Just sayin’.

I worked for a software company. Even if we had written confirmation from a user that they had ordered, and wanted, the software, and had lengthy records of our contacts with them as we supported the product, and even email chains with us asking about the chargeback and them swearing it was a mistake and that they wanted and used the software, we lost every single dispute.

3

The money it not the issue so much as I wanted and needed a product that could do with this product was supposed to do. I wasted half a day and wound up looking like a fool in front of my client. I know both PC and Mac and need a tool to do this.

Just last week I moved a client from an old G5 iMac to a new Intel Mac Mini. In order to do so, I had to open the iMac, take it apart to the logic board and replace two blown capacitors to get it working again. I know this system fairly well.

What I need is the tool that Apple keeps to it’s self to do these transitions.

4

Well, it would be more accurate to say they mentioned it on their website. From your link:

I would just take an external hard drive, copy all files to the hard drive from the PC, hook up the external hard drive to the Mac, and copy the files from the hard drive to the Mac.

5

That. You can get a 1TB USB drive for a hunnert bucks.

6

As you might have noticed in my post, I have both computers on the network. No need to get external hard disks involved. I can copy files, but what I wanted, what I had thought I had purchased, was something to do that autofuckingmatically for all four users on the orignal computer, that would move the e-mail contents, would move all the images, music files, bookmarks, what have you. You know, something like Apple’s one Migration Assistant or Microsoft’s Windows Easy Transfer - just to work between the two operating systems.

7

Not good enough.

If Move2Mac is going to be placed second in a list of possible ways to do this, on Apple’s own support forums, then it’s reasonable for Mac users to assume that the product at least functions properly and is not a fucking ripoff.

Apple can put the weasel phrase underneath in the belief that it absolves them of any responsibility, but if they’re going to list the thing on their own support pages, as the next option after getting an Apple tech to do the job, then they should know that people are going to take it as a recommendation.

8

What files is it supposed to transfer that you can’t just copy over via USB flash drive or external drive or DVD?

9

Psst: read the post 2 above yours.

10

You deserve everything you get and more, you traitor!

11

What were you expecting, for it to “Just work”

LOL!

Best part is, thats probably a pay per sale link you clicked on at Apple, wouldn’t shock me if they got paid a few bucks for referring you.

12

I’m moving this from the BBQ Pit to Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share. No offense intended to the OP.

Gfactor
Pit Moderator

13

VMWare Fusion offers a feature that copies an entire Windows installation from a PC into a virtual machine on the Mac. You can then open individual Windows programs against the Mac desktop, hiding the Windows desktop.