Migration assistant- how good is it really?

Hi powerbook1701;

If you want the new MBP to be the same as the old one then Migration Assistant will probably be the quicks way to do that.

Allan

It is very good.

To be successful, the transfer must be done on first boot of the new Mac. You will get Setup Assistant and be asked what you want to transfer over. Select them all. It will pull everything over just fine. Only exception is if there are newer Apple Apps, it won't bring the older ones over.

Some older third party Apps may or may not be compatible. You can always uninstall them and get new ones. Office 2008 should be OK.

I just used it recently and everything came over, Desktop, Settings etc., everything.

Message was edited by: WZZZ

To be successful, the transfer must be done on first boot of the new Mac.

This statement is 100% incorrect, while it should work OK on the first boot my best experiences have been to use MA after you have booted the new Mac, downloaded all the updates and run it for a couple of hours to ensure everything is fine. Running Migration Assistant is easy, simply start the new machine, then launch Migration Assistant (Command-Spacebar then type Migration Assistant) or simply clicking on the app which is located in Applications-Utilities. Then follow the simple on-screen instructions and you're all set. I would recommend using a Firewire 800 connection for the best results, if your old Mac doesn't have a FW 800 port then use a cable like this which connects FW 400 to FW 800.

Regards,

Roger

I used it a few weeks ago, and not from first boot. It copied everything fine, just a few little settings it missed off, like serial numbers from some programs, ive been using the migrated now for a few weeks and its all good, definately worth doing.

To be successful, the transfer must be done on first boot of the new Mac.

It's probably better to do it this way, then your username will be brought over together with the Home Folder. (I would recommend not using to transfer applications, but doing that manually).

The problem arises when people create a user with the same name as on the other Mac before running Migration assistant: if you create a differently named user account then MA can bring the old one over and you can delete the new one.

Roger Wilmut wrote:I would recommend not using to transfer applications, but doing that manually.

Roger, if by "manual" you mean dragging them over from the Applications Folder, I'm sure you know that will only work for simple Apps that don't have many files all over the place. E.g., Office 2008, or Adobe CS, won't come over this way. I guess it could be done, but finding all the related Files would be a daunting task.

From my, admittedly, limited experience using MA in Snow one time -- once was all I needed -- I had no problem bringing over (and now running) any of the Apps, including older PPC Apps.

There have been several recent threads here confirming my experience. Perhaps your advice was based on the pre-Snow version of MA; The Snow version, at least from anecdotal evidence, seems to have been improved. It really worked flawlessly for me, transferring from an iMac G5 running10.5.8, previously A&Id from a Panther installation, (and, sometime along the way, an Apps only MA from a G3 10.4 to the already configured G5 which, in fact, did get muddled and needed a lot of cleaning up after -- problem there was I didn't know ahead of time, it would try to bring all the Apps over, all or nothing, and it brought some ancient things along with the compatible, usable stuff.)

I think those more complex Apps, if not transferred over with MA (or Setup Assistant -- same thing) on first boot) should be properly reinstalled from disc.

I think those more complex Apps....should be properly reinstalled from disc.

Yes, absolutely.