I have been a software developer for the last 30+ years, last 15 of them working for myself. I switch computers (buy new one/give old one away) every few years. Lately, I have been switching a lot less. The enormous hassle of moving things from computer to computer and tweaking it so it works staring me in the face prevents me from switching for quite a long time even if I really want a new computer… (I work with Windows, so for Apple YMMV, I don’t know).
Why, in 30+ years of PC development, has no one yet perfected a painless way to move everything, including OS tweaks and my enormous trove of installed software, to another machine? I think if that was possible, it would really spur a big increase in new computer sales…
Or maybe I am clueless and there is a way to do this painlessly?
It depends on how perfect and how painless you need it to be. About a year ago I had used the Win7 version of the Windows “Files & Settings Transfer Wizard” and was much more impressed than I was on previous versions.
It also depends on the sort of tweaks you’ve made. As a software developer, I’m sure you’re aware that the software you developed perfectly with Widget 3.42 might totally crash with Widget 3.43. How should this miraculous transfer utility deal with that?
Similarly, if any of the peripherals on the new system differ from the old, yer gonna need new drivers. And they too are embedded in ways that make it very tricky for the transfer utility.
But you probably figured all this out on you own. There’s gotta be another answer.
When my children (all adults now) ask me questions about the business world, I often point out that 90% of the time, the answer is in one word: Marketing. In the case at hand, the “increase in new computer sales” would not be nearly as large as you imagine. Such a transfer utility would be worthwhile only for the most geeky end of the market. There’s much more profit to be made in reselling new versions of the software for the new machine. Etc etc etc etc.
And even if it WOULD spur a big increase in new computer sales, that would be benefit to the hardware manufacturers, NOT to the software developers. The project you envision might be wonderful, but would be too expensive for anyone to buy.
It wouldn’t, but then I wouldn’t expect it to. I would expect some kind of utility that would manage to transfer installed software (including all the registered COM DLLs etc) to another machine.
I don’t think it is possible with current OSs, but if Microsoft kept moving from machine to machine in mind when developing the OS over the years, I am sure they could have made it possible.
It would be a big boon to MS, since they get $ from every computer sold with Windows on it, and incidentally they are the ones best positioned to create such a utility and put features in OS that would make it possible.
A new version of Windows every few years. It can get real messy if you go from 32- to 64-bit.
The dreaded Registry. With Unix you can usually just copy in the app directories and the app will work right away. Not so with Doz as it’s got to be in the Registry too.
New hardware standards. If your old computer didn’t have SATA or USB 3.0, that could be a problem.
Now you could buy a new computer and clone the hard drive from the old to the new. That way you have all new hardward, but the same old software. However #3 above might bite you plus MS might complain that copy Windows is on more than one machine.
Since you have no familiarity with OS X, let me just say that Apple did this a long time ago.
Upgrading to a new machine is as simple as having both machines on the same network, and typing a passcode into the old machine, at which point the Migration Assistant schleps all your stuff from the old one to the new one.
There’s always virtualization too. Copy your old PC as a virtual machine running on the desktop of the new machine. Now, you can run your old software same as always until someone figures out how to kill those zombie machines…
If by “used to be” you’re referring to earlier this year, then yeah, I remember that. I installed a new printer/scanner on a Windows 7 machine using WiFi, and it took me four hours.
Back in the old days (MS-DOS), I just plugged in a printer and it worked
Even if possible this would be a very bad idea. Over time the OS installation gets slowly corrupted and messed up. It is good to make a clean installation every so often and there is no better time than when getting a new computer. Then you can reinstall cleanly what you need and use and leave behind all the crap that has accumulated over the years.
Yes, that’s true.
I just helped a client move from Windows to OS X - it was a huge pain! First of all, he had Outlook databases in at least 5 different locations (backups of backups of backups). His photos were scattered all over his old hard drive, and the same with various documents. I finally did get everything transferred, though.
Honestly, you’d be better served doing piece by piece replacement of your current computer.
Max out the RAM, then when the processor is too slow, swap it along with the motherboard. Just make sure to uninstall the drivers for the current motherboard, first…
Video cards are even easier to swap these days.
In any case, for software development, the new fad in town is to keep all your code and dependencies stored online in a repository. Your local computer’s IDE, if everything is set right, can just download your project from the repository, and sync any changes you make.
When everything works right, you can use any old computer as a client whenever you want. Thin clients work. Linux flavors work. Etc. It takes this very mess of configuring stuff out of it, theoretically.
For all the non-programatic content, files, documents, pictures, music, etc., it’s easier, IMO, to just spend some bucks on a second hard drive, copy it all over, then replace your main drive.
You have to reinstall all the apps, of course but it’s fast and easy for this kind of content.
When you’re done, copy all the music & stuff back and use the 2nd drive as a backup target.
Rinse and repeat. I’ve always got two drives in my machine, the former main drive as a backup target and the newer OS drive.
Soon it’ll be three since I have a SATA for my pure-OS now to be installed.
Vista and Windows 7 fixed that. Doesn’t happen anymore.
There’s still a possibility that your Registry might get a teensy bit bloated, but the bloated stuff will never get paged into memory so it’s harmless.
