Laplink PCMover

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The_Heretic

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Searched the forum and only found posts back to 2006-08 so a bit dated for my current question.

Bosses are asking about Laplink's PCMover because Win10 isn't supposed to include Windows Easy Transfer any longer and Microsoft has partnered with Laplink to use PCMover as a replacement. We're not in Win10 yet, but the writing is on the wall.

I'm looking at PCMover Enterprise, and if anyone has experience with it or just the standard PCMover and how well it does or does not work I would appreciate the input. Or of course any known good alternatives that would work in an enterprise environment to migrates users and their software would be welcomed info as well.

Bueller, Bueller ?
 
80 views and no responses ? Doesn't look good for PC Mover. One bump in case some eyes missed it as I would still like to hear if there's any experience with it.
 
Wall of text approaching, consider yourself warned... :D

I recently was looking for something like this to use with a client's machine who absolutely refused to let me do a clean installation - he had some applications/programs/etc that while considerably old (XP era stuff) they still functioned well on his updated Windows 7 machine (meaning it had XP originally, then he upgraded to Vista Home Premium upon release, then again upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium upon release so, it certainly ain't the cleanest machine in terms of "gunk" that's for damned sure). I fought him tooth and nail on it and finally suggested that if he wanted to move to Windows 10 it was time for a true actual clean installation - I say that because I never ever recommend upgrades, that's my personal stance and one I don't waiver from, ever - and again he fought me on it.

Eventually we just decided to part company, sadly, and my last recommendation was to find some software of the nature like PC Mover or the older Aloha Bob thing (if that even still exists) for "moving" basically everything from one Windows install to another one. He hit up Fry's here in Las Vegas, according to what he passed on by email, grabbed PC Mover (was on sale with some kind of BS rebate making it "free" but I suspect he'll never get the Mail-In-Rebate check or it'll be months before it does show up if it ever does), and proceeded to follow the instructions precisely, or so he said. I can say from my experience with this particular client that he doesn't follow written directions well (and my guides are always loaded with info, not just a simple checklist to do, I provide all sorts of other info that's related so they know why doing step 7 is required and what happens, etc).

Well, of course the next day my phone rang and he was practically begging for assistance while also screaming about losing a decade's worth of valuable data, personal info, emails, pictures, music, you know the usual stuff people always end up destroying because they don't listen to those of us that do this sort of stuff for a living. :D

I went over and it took maybe 13 hours of data recovery to get nearly everything back - the reason I'm explaining all this is because the product he used, PC Mover by LapLink, could have been the culprit in all this, or it could have just been his misunderstanding of the process as fully laid out in the PC Mover documentation (it had the typical user guide as a PDF on the installation disc, no actual physical paper manual and he didn't bother to print out any of it, not even the single page checklist they did provide). So, he scanned the instructions, wrote down a few notes for himself, then attempted to do all this "moving" process (using a 2TB external Western Digital USB drive, hence the excessive amount of time doing data recovery, I honestly think his computer still uses USB 1.1 ports, I just don't know and didn't care at the time).

After his machine was restored to working condition (with Windows 7 Home Premium on it), then I attempted to do the PC Mover "moving" myself - at that point I was tempted to leave and come back the next day but, since I made it clear he was paying for this service I decided to just stick it out (I charge flat rate pricing for service depending so, it ended up being worth my time three times over I suppose). Followed the necessary instructions from PC Mover, got the data backed up and verifed as best I could, installed the Windows 10 upgrade without any issues (or cares about his data still on the drive because of the verified backup), and when the upgrade was finally done and showed activated that's when I wiped it clean and did a proper clean installation of Windows 10 as it should be done and verified the activation afterward since it was already "on file" with Microsoft because of the previous upgrade.

While his computer is probably 11+ years old now it does actually run Windows 10 somewhat well, and that's all I'll say about that. Installed the version of PC Mover that he purchased, made sure it was running the latest updated one available because of potential Windows 10 issues, then allowed it to "move" all the data back into place. Took about 5.5 hours altogether (USB 1.1, hurray!) for about 1.4TB of data and after it was finally done I had him sit down at the machine and 'do his thing' more or less.

Of course the Windows 10 layout confused the hell out of him but after some more hand holding he finally got a grasp on what was different, that all his "stuff" was there, that his applications including the old ones did still fire up as expected (had to adjust 4 of them for compatibility but they did function, a 5th one did require an update to make it work with Windows 10 even in spite of compatibility mode) and by the time I left almost a day later (yes I worked on it straight through) he was "a happy camper" as the saying goes.

Now, after reading this entirely too wordy post you might think that my experience of using PC Mover in this situation would have me extolling the virtues of it as a great product and definitely something you should get but I won't do that because I never recommend upgrades, ever. My advice is start over again even in the face of not being able to potentially use an application/program that worked fine on the previous operating system but is either no longer supported with a newer one or just has compatibility issues meaning it works but some aspects are crippled or simply non-functional.

So, maybe this post will make up for all the views and no responses, I have no idea. I suppose as a last resort I would make use of PC Mover again if needed but, I will never recommend it directly because the whole idea behind it is effectively it's use for upgrading to a newer OS. Yes there are times when people have a computer that dies for some random reason and they get it fixed or keep the same hardware configuration but need to reinstall the same OS and then wish to move everything over to the "new" install and that's fine, I get that and I understand the reason(s). But when it comes to upgrading an OS, I just never have recommended an upgrade - with Windows 10 the only reason I'm ok with it is because by design Microsoft is only really offering Windows 10 for free as an upgrade but as noted above, as soon as that actual in-place upgrade was complete (and knowing his data was safely backed up, as much as I could be) I wiped that machine and did a proper clean install of Windows 10.

Anyway, that's my own experience - first time user of PC Mover about a week ago so, I just noticed this thread because you 'bumped' it back into the recent posts view. Hope the info proves useful and if you end up having success with PC Mover then definitely let people know, if it's a good product then it deserves to be known. I'm not knocking it, and I'm not not recommending it for people, just saying that my actual recommendation is and always has been (for decades now) back up your personal data of all kinds (documents/pics/music/videos/etc), locate the application installers to whatever degree you can (hopefully from original media if you keep that sort of stuff around), then do a clean install of whatever OS you're hoping to use (and doing that upgrade/clean install path for Windows 10 if so desired and getting it done before that July 29th deadline for the free upgrade).

Good luck.
 
Tiberian said:
Wall of text approaching, consider yourself warned... :D
Click to expand...

Ok Tiberian, thanks for the input. I'm a big believer in fresh installs and replacing files. But they're asking about so I'm going to take a look at it as time allows.
 
I'm retired so basically I was sitting around 95% of the time I was there, talking with him, having lunch, dinner, and even breakfast the next morning (on him of course), watching TV, etc. Just no sense of me leaving then coming back for one changeover point, then leaving again, etc. I stayed up the whole time as well and watched TV when he went to bed, not much else going on. Like I said, I charged him and he paid for it and in the long run it was well worth the time invested to get things set right so I'm good.
 
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