long and short i've just bought a new PC for my home office as last week I discovered my existing one isn't powerful enough to run zwift.
on my old PC are a few key programs that I cant find the discs for, is there any way to transfer them to the new PC as without the discs i'm not able to re-install them?
Tricky one.
One option might be to run your old PC as a Virtual Machine within your new PC. The new PC would run Microsoft's Hyper-V which comes with Windows 10 Pro and you can then backup your old PC with something like Veeam's free Windows agent for it to then be restored as the Virtual Machine nested 'inside' your new PC. I'm sure I've seen blogs outlining this process but can't find a handy link for you at the moment.
Edit: here's a similar process - https://www.online-tech-tips.com/free-software-downloads/convert-pc-into-virtual-machine/
You could just clone the drive and stick a nice new fast drive in the new PC. Things like Acronis TrueImage do the job very well
You cannot "move" Windows applications in any sort of sensible manner.
Anything stopping you from just re-downloading them? Who uses discs anymore?
this is the answer
clone the hdd or ssd and move that
before you do that though make sure your windows liscence is tied to a microsoft online account. then when the new pc starts you will be asked to log in, your liscence will be updated and you should be able to download and install allo the drivers needed for teh new pc
i know this works. i did it myself less than a year ago
So if his old PC is Windows 95 or something, you'd recommend cloning the disk and running it as the O/S in his sparkling new PC?
Lordy.
As Cougar says, search online for the updated installs.
Can't you just take out the HDD from the old computer and stick it in the new? Used to work for me (was probably the same windows version though).
So if his old PC is Windows 95 or something, you’d recommend cloning the disk and running it as the O/S in his sparkling new PC?
Yes, and then upgrade the OS. That said it would help to know the OS
I have some programs you cannot download so have the install files backed up in a couple of places. Not everything is still out there
before you do that though make sure your windows liscence is tied to a microsoft online
No.
Can’t you just take out the HDD from the old computer and stick it in the new?
No.
Yes, and then upgrade the OS.
No.
Well, technically yes, you could try all of these things but they're somewhere between pointless and monumentally terrible ideas.
Any PC released in like the last ten years will already be licensed, that's a non-issue. You potentially could move hard disks between PCs with a long list of caveats (CPU architecture, Secure Boot, Bitlocker, many more...) but I'd have that down as a last resort. If it requires an in-place upgrade then that just makes it even more problematic.
Just redownload the software. If you cannot download the software for some reason then explain why and we'll try to field that. Don't start cocking about trying to move things, at best it will be suboptimal.
Thank gawd for good sense 😀