Replacing a Mac

by Volker Weber

Replacing a Mac
Photo: vowe

Wire up new Mac. Start Migration Assistant. Enter six digits. Walk away.

Update: In the morning, there were three files to manually copy, deactivate Creative Suite on the old and activate on the new iMac. That's all Charly Brown.

Who thinks PCs are cheaper than Macs?

Comments

leaves room for improvement for other platforms

Flemming Riis, 2011-05-10

Did the same when I replaced one of the Macs in our house. It was then that I realized how much easier a Mac is than a PC.

Gregg Eldred, 2011-05-10

kinda takes the novelty of re-installing all your applications away, doesn't it? Where is the joy ;)

Paul Mooney, 2011-05-10

Still using the same Mac OS 10.4 based installation upgraded to 10.5 and 10.6 on the third Mac now.

Michael Sedlaczek, 2011-05-10

New birthday present?

Alan Lepofsky, 2011-05-10

Nope. But delivered today.

Volker Weber, 2011-05-10

What's the aanvantage of this approach vs. restoring (this option has another name) from time machine?

Nick Shelness, 2011-05-11

I don't backup apps on TIme Machine.

Volker Weber, 2011-05-11

This is an example of positive user experience - normally longer time after purchasing your first Mac. Confirms that You made the right decision once.
I enjoyed this feature some time ago after replacing my Powerbook with a MacBook Pro. Hassle-free.

Sven Bühler, 2011-05-11

I'm using Macs now since 4 years. I've never reinstalled one from scratch like I would have done multiple times in that time range with Windows. That's what saves time and money and gives at least some of my hairs time until they change to grey ;-)

Thomas Lang, 2011-05-11

Had tried to posted this before but lot my 3G connection - have any of you actually tried the built-in Easy Transfer on Windows? It worked just as well for me several times, despite conventional wisdom that changing systems is so hard on Windows. Consider the option that your Windows experience may be outdated and that you may frequently be comparing W2K to MacOS X (and I am typing this on my MacBook Air btw).

Jan Tietze, 2011-05-12

@Jan - I agree that Easy Transfer deserves at least a mention, but my (considerable) experience of it in office and network contexts suggests it is far less consistent than the Apple system - I always had to do a lot of manual copying and fiddling to complete the job.

In the end, we always end up doing ghosting to transfer system files, because although it takes time, it is much more reliable.

Nick Daisley, 2011-05-12

I have used both, I had to do a win to win change on the same day as a mac to mac. Mac migration vs the easy transfer. So if Microsoft things that messing around with the computer for 12hrs is an 'easy' transfer, i think they need to re-examine the definition. Mac was dead simple, hook up via firewire and let it go. Reboot the new system and it was just perfect. For some reason on the PC i had to mess around with creating the disks and all sorts of crap to get it going, then when it did finally go there was a lot of manual work and installation just to get the machine operational. Hands down, a Mac always beats a PC in user experience.

Bryan McDade, 2011-05-12

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