Product Reviews

Transferring all your files, settings and programs from an old computer to a new one is usually a tedious and time-consuming task, especially if you've built up a large collection of music, photo and video files. Windows XP has a built-in File and Settings Transfer wizard to automate the process, but this isn't capable of transferring your applications, so you'll still have to dig out all those installation CDs and serial numbers and painstakingly install them one at a time.

Thankfully, Laplink's PCmover is here to help and is more than happy to transfer your programs to a new computer. This means that, even if you're upgrading all the way from a Windows 95 machine to a PC running Vista Ultimate, you'll barely have to lift a finger.

If you want a boxed copy of PCmover with a USB2 cable for direct transfers, the software costs £50 including VAT, but you can download PCmover from www.laplink.com for £35 including VAT and use an existing network cable for transferring the data. If you don't have a network, you can use any removable media, such as a USB flash memory drive, or burn your data to CDs or DVDs. The software also supports serial and parallel cables, but the transfer rates will be so slow that we can't recommend these methods.

As you'd expect, you'll need to install PCmover on both computers. Starting with the new PC or notebook, the wizard takes a snapshot of the currently installed applications and settings. You then start the same wizard on your old computer. This gives you the opportunity to customise which settings the software transfers. Options include Microsoft Outlook settings and contacts, and Word and Internet Explorer settings. You can opt out of moving Internet Explorer or Firefox settings to try to avoid copying any spyware that might have found its way on to your

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Annoyingly, there's no option to choose which individual programs to transfer, so it's all or nothing. The same applies to your files, so any files you don't want on your new computer will simply have to be deleted once the process is complete. It's also worth noting that PCmover has a few limitations. For example, anti-virus and anti-spyware programs (and any other application that installs system services, such as hard disk imaging software) will almost certainly have to be reinstalled from the original disc, along with any programs that require a serial number, and you may have to reactivate any DRM-protected files. PCmover won't transfer hardware information, either, so you'll have to install your printers, scanners and TV tuners, and possibly any associated software, manually.

We tested PCmover by transferring everything from a Dell Inspiron 9400 notebook running Windows XP Home Edition to a PC with Vista Home Premium. PCmover reported that it needed to move a whopping 22GB of data, including 29,836 files and 95,453 settings. Overall, data is compressed by approximately 50 per cent and, despite Laplink recommending a network as the fastest connection, the whole process took just under half an hour using the bundled USB2 cable. By contrast, the transfer was significantly slower over a 10/100MB/s network connection, taking one hour and 15 minutes.

When we checked our new PC we found that everything had gone smoothly, except that McAfee Internet Security Suite 2006 reported missing files and requested that we reinstall it. All our files and program settings had migrated correctly, and apart from the change in appearance from Windows XP to Vista, it was as if we were still using the old notebook.

Despite the amount of time and effort PCmover saves, however, it has one frustrating limitation: once you've entered the serial number on your old computer, you can't reuse the software on another one. So if you upgrade to a new computer in the future, you'll need to buy another licence in order to transfer your data and programs again. However, the USB cable doesn't become entirely redundant, as PCmover comes with a basic application for synchronising folders between two PCs, and it doesn't restrict you to the two you used for PCmover.

If you're the sort of person who'd sooner spend money than sit down and transfer data manually, PCmover will put a smile on your face. But its one-time licence makes it fairly poor value.