transfer apps and data directly from old phone to new phone

i was told at apple store i could do a restore from a back up on my laptop BUT it asks for an encryption password which i never used or have seen that request before. no password i have ever used works. have tried many different approaches always comes back to the password which i don't know and apple doesn't either. will lose 10 years of data, etc.

no...as far as i can determine from all the discussions and research. we are screwed. apple assigns an encryption back up password without informing the customer and it is not retrievable. i lost 10 years of stuff on my old phone. some really important like the last spoken words of a loved one.

can't get the back up off the computer because it asks for an encryption password that i have never used or had before.