Migration Assistant, or "Migrate by hand"?
in [Mac Systems]
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From: AES on 2 Aug 2010 14:20 I'm about to transfer most of my life from my trusty 2007 vintage MacBook, still running Tiger, to a new MacBook Pro 15" with Snow Leopard factory installed. Last time I moved between machines (OS 9 iBook to Tiger MacBook), I just hooked old machine up in Target Disk mode, told Migration Assistant to "Go!", and pretty much everything worked beautifully. But this time, the old machine has both a number of third-party apps and utilities I'd like to keep, preferably along with their settings -- like DragThing, XMenu, Mathematica, Eudora, a TeX installation, several Adobe apps, etc -- but also probably a lot of cruft that's accumulated in 3 or 4 years of daily use. Question is: should I just transfer all my old files (everything in my User folder anyway) over from old machine to new using Migration Assistant, then try to clean up cruft on the new machine? Or, is it worth the trouble to fire up the new machine, connect old machine in Target Disk mode, and start either cautiously copying stuff over or reinstalling apps or utilities if I have original DVDs or disk images -- gradually rebuilding the new machine? Any advice on this? (And, is there a built-in Uninstaller in Snow Leopard? Or a recommended third party Uninstaller for it?)
From: nospam on 2 Aug 2010 14:33 In article <siegman-733E8D.11201602082010(a)sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu>, AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote: > Question is: should I just transfer all my old files (everything in my > User folder anyway) over from old machine to new using Migration > Assistant, then try to clean up cruft on the new machine? > > Or, is it worth the trouble to fire up the new machine, connect old > machine in Target Disk mode, and start either cautiously copying stuff > over or reinstalling apps or utilities if I have original DVDs or disk > images -- gradually rebuilding the new machine? use migration assistant. it works *very* well. just about everything is copied. > (And, is there a built-in Uninstaller in Snow Leopard? Or a recommended > third party Uninstaller for it?) uninstall by dragging to trash and the few exceptions come with their own uninstaller, e.g., adobe creative suite. there is also very little need to uninstall anything since all it does is take up space if it's not used. there is no registry corruption or any of that nonsense.
From: Michael Kallweitt on 2 Aug 2010 14:32 AES wrote: > I'm about to transfer most of my life from my trusty 2007 vintage > MacBook, still running Tiger, to a new MacBook Pro 15" with Snow Leopard > factory installed. > > Last time I moved between machines (OS 9 iBook to Tiger MacBook), I just > hooked old machine up in Target Disk mode, told Migration Assistant to > "Go!", and pretty much everything worked beautifully. > > But this time, the old machine has both a number of third-party apps and > utilities I'd like to keep, preferably along with their settings -- like > DragThing, XMenu, Mathematica, Eudora, a TeX installation, several Adobe > apps, etc -- but also probably a lot of cruft that's accumulated in 3 or > 4 years of daily use. Some time ago, I migrated from an iMac G4 (OS X Version 10.3.9) to a MacBook Intel C2D (OS X Version 10.5, at the time). Migration Assistant worked <steve>like MAGIC</steve>, and all my settings, my apps, and even my Fink installation ran on the new computer. Therefore, if you don't want to risk losing some carefully adjusted prefs, or run into problems with file permissions or the like, I'd suggest that you give MA a chance. You still got your old computer (and a backup, hopefully) to transfer files manually, should anything go wrong. > (And, is there a built-in Uninstaller in Snow Leopard? Or a recommended > third party Uninstaller for it?) To uninstall what? There are 3rd party apps to remove leftovers from deleted applications. -- www.wasfuereintheater.com - Neue Theaterprojekte im Ruhrpott "As an artist, I'm reporting the big things and the small things. And sometimes you don't know which is which." Maira Kalman, http://bit.ly/a53n2K
From: Tom Stiller on 2 Aug 2010 14:37 In article <siegman-733E8D.11201602082010(a)sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu>, AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote: > I'm about to transfer most of my life from my trusty 2007 vintage > MacBook, still running Tiger, to a new MacBook Pro 15" with Snow Leopard > factory installed. > > Last time I moved between machines (OS 9 iBook to Tiger MacBook), I just > hooked old machine up in Target Disk mode, told Migration Assistant to > "Go!", and pretty much everything worked beautifully. > > But this time, the old machine has both a number of third-party apps and > utilities I'd like to keep, preferably along with their settings -- like > DragThing, XMenu, Mathematica, Eudora, a TeX installation, several Adobe > apps, etc -- but also probably a lot of cruft that's accumulated in 3 or > 4 years of daily use. > > Question is: should I just transfer all my old files (everything in my > User folder anyway) over from old machine to new using Migration > Assistant, then try to clean up cruft on the new machine? > > Or, is it worth the trouble to fire up the new machine, connect old > machine in Target Disk mode, and start either cautiously copying stuff > over or reinstalling apps or utilities if I have original DVDs or disk > images -- gradually rebuilding the new machine? > > Any advice on this? Migration Assistant has an option to transfer applications, as well as users. > > (And, is there a built-in Uninstaller in Snow Leopard? Or a recommended > third party Uninstaller for it?) -- Tom Stiller PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3 7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF
From: Stephen on 2 Aug 2010 15:47
On 2010-08-02 19:33:18 +0100, nospam said: > In article <siegman-733E8D.11201602082010(a)sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu>, > AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote: > >> Question is: should I just transfer all my old files (everything in my >> User folder anyway) over from old machine to new using Migration >> Assistant, then try to clean up cruft on the new machine? >> >> Or, is it worth the trouble to fire up the new machine, connect old >> machine in Target Disk mode, and start either cautiously copying stuff >> over or reinstalling apps or utilities if I have original DVDs or disk >> images -- gradually rebuilding the new machine? > > use migration assistant. it works *very* well. just about everything is > copied. > >> (And, is there a built-in Uninstaller in Snow Leopard? Or a recommended >> third party Uninstaller for it?) > > uninstall by dragging to trash and the few exceptions come with their > own uninstaller, e.g., adobe creative suite. there is also very little > need to uninstall anything since all it does is take up space if it's > not used. there is no registry corruption or any of that nonsense. Is migration assistant smart enought to leave orphaned files ie. Application Support files where the application has been deleted, or does it just do a file copy from old to new regardless of whether the files are needed or not? Thanks. |