# POLL: When you get a new computer, do you just move on or bring stuff over? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 26, 2012, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820 "2012-03-26T04:40:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820/21 "2012-03-26T21:00:12Z")
When I got a new computer a couple years ago, about the only thing that I saved was my personal data (which amounts to only about 700 MB\*; no videos, songs, etc, mostly just stuff I created myself, going back 11 years now); many of the programs that I use are also free and downloadable; I have saved some of their installation files along with the rest of my data just to make it easier to reinstall them (and that I tend to only do if I find that I need the program). As for settings, the differences between Windows 7 and XP are enough so that you are probably better off not trying to replicate everything. From experience, most people save at least some stuff (discarded computers rarely have hard drives in them unless they failed). \*I still use a 512 MB flash drive for backup (compressed), which probably has a few years of space left. ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820/22 "2012-03-26T21:02:56Z")
I live with a techie so B is probably the closest. All of our software installation files are on a network drive so I would reinstall from there. Install codes are in text files in the appropriate directory. All of my documents are stored on the network, the only thing I would have to save to move over to a new PC would be the favorites file. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820/23 "2012-03-26T21:36:33Z")
D for me. While I do prune somewhat every few months, I have documents still on my computer that date back to the early 1980’s (mostly text documents - not like there was much other than that back then). Yes, I even use them occasionally. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820/24 "2012-03-26T21:41:52Z")
My husband painstakingly does D, and then when I use the computer it’s more like A. He’s moved everything, and it’s _somewhere_, but I’ve never gone back to anything. I thank him profusely, though, I know he puts a lot of effort into it. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820/25 "2012-03-26T22:28:48Z")
Slave the old hard drive into the new machine, install the desired warez (Quicken 2004, Office 2007, antivirus, etc) move favorites and other files onto the new drive, format the old hard drive and use it as an internal backup to support my 2 external backups (I’ve had to start from scratch before, I didn’t like it). In fact, I had to do this a couple weeks ago. I now have a terrabyte slave that holds just movies. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820/26 "2012-03-26T22:40:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > By the time I get a new computer, hard drives are generally an order of magnitude or two larger than the were on the previous computer, so it’s no burden to just copy everything over. If I find that I have use for something on the new computer, I copy it over to some more convenient place, but otherwise, I just have a nesting set of Matrushka dolls of old hard drives. Like, on my current laptop (Tagii), I have a directory that holds everything that was on my previous laptop (Dora), including a directory that holds most everything that was on my Mac desktop (Cassandra), which includes a directory containing everything that was on my second generation of Windows computer (Teena), which contains a directory with everything that was on my first Windows computer (Mycroft). And yes, I do still occasionally dive through all those layers to dig up something from that first computer. This is pretty much what I do, and for much the same reasons. Storage space has expanded quickly enough that there’s seldom any reason to discard things. I do occasionally delete some of the clutter along the way, especially in more recent migrations, but there are deeply nested files on my current primary machine that date back to my first PC. (And at least one that I reentered by hand from a fanfold printout I acquired in the late 70s, before I had access to any machines with nonvolatile storage.) ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820/27 "2012-03-27T09:09:57Z")
I’m hopeless. I have an old HP which should have gone to its reward about four years ago, when I replaced it with a Toshiba. Trouble is, I can’t decide what I want to keep. Nor am I sure how to save the stuff (especially photos) that I will want to keep. Now my Toshiba is getting past its best and I’m going to replace it with a MacBook Pro. If I can’t figure out soon what to keep, what to toss and how to keep the stuff I want to keep, I’ll have two laptops which are gathering dust in the bottom drawer. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820/28 "2012-03-27T09:29:47Z")
It’s **B)** for me. Generally I try to always have two computers, at all times, each set up similarly (though for different primary purposes), so when one fails I can easily migrate some standard apps, settings, old documents, personal files, etc. I also currently have an external hard drive to store my media files on, so they are independent of a specific computer. Indeed, when hard drive prices come down, I’ll need to add a second larger one to my network so that I can backup and expand. I do not yet trust “the cloud” and in fact don’t really think it’s going to ever be the backup, storage, or app installation method of the future. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-when-you-get-a-new-computer-do-you-just-move-on-or-bring-stuff-over/616820.md?page=1)