Backing Up My C Drive For A New Computer

I Should Take Delivery Of A New Computer In A Few Days. To Save Reinstalling All The Programs Can I Copy My C Drive To An External Hard Disk And When The New Machine Arrives, Can I Copy This C Drive Onto The Hard Disk Of The New Computer.

 

Wesinlimavady,

Welcome to the BBS

The short answer is NO

Some older programs and some newer stand alone programs only need to be copied, but most programs need to be installed.
You can copy all your data files ( my Documents ) over to your new Computer.
Happy computing
Sven

 

There are practical, licensing and other issues that preclude simply copying the old drive to the new.

There are several migration utilities you could use:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1091180,00.asp

(Note: Microsoft has since purchased Aloha Bob)

XP natively only comes with F.A.S.T., and requires that you reinstall your application software: http://aumha.org/win5/a/fast.htm