I bought a new Mac recently and was thinking of how I was going to get the new machine configured to work in the same way as the old one.
With Microsoft Windows it’s simple, but not pleasant. Basically you have to reinstall all applications again because Windows uses a “feature” called the Registry that stores keys relating to each application and it appears that these are not transferable. Feel free to spend your own time to read-up on this subject if you are interested.
What a contrast it was when I wanted to get the new Mac setup with the same apps, data, user accounts and settings as the old Mac. The guy in the shop told me to simply:
- Plug in a firewire cable between the two machines
- Run Migration Assistant on the new Mac and select apps, user accounts, settings from the checkboxes shown
- Hold the “T” key down and power-up the old Mac (which puts it into Firewire Target Mode)
- Once the old Mac shows the Firewire symbol on the screen, press OK on the new Mac and the transfer commences
- Have a coffee, tea, beer or whatever for an hour or two (I had more than 120GB or so in a user account)
- Migration Assistant informs you that it has successfully migrated the new Mac
What could be easier? And, in the end I didn’t even need to remember all this anyway as when I booted the new Mac it ran Migration Assistant automatically anyway 🙂