will migration assistant only migrate old data and settings that will function with a newer Mac operating system?on the original computer

Perhaps the following information will be helpful. Migration Assistant is very easy to use. Be sure to read and follow its instructions. Basically, the process is as follows.

You first begin by starting the process of setting up your new computer. You will be asked if you wish to transfer files. Respond YES and follow the instructions you will be given.

·      You will be told to turn both computers on and activate Migration Assistant in the old computer.

·      The computers should be connected with a USB cable to facilitate the transfer. Wi-Fi is not suited for a transfer of so much data and corruption often results. If you must use it, make sure the two computers are located close together.

·      You will be given several options of what to transfer. You will likely want to transfer your settings and preferences.

·      You can transfer all or none of your files. You do not have an option to select certain files to transfer. If you wish to do that, then do so manually. You can transfer all or none of your installed apps. Some people elect to download fresh installations to the new computer instead. That way, anything that is contaminated won't be transferred. In your case, your old computer has a lot of older apps installed which may not work in the new computer.

·      The old computer's operating system will not be transferred. No data from the old computer is erased.

·      Allow for up to an hour for the transfer process to complete once you start it.

·      It should set up the new computer the same as the old one.

·      When that is successful, you can log into the new Mac with the old User Account name and password and delete the brand-new user or leave it in place as a second admin account.

Enjoy your new Mac.

I hope this is helpful. Good luck.

Many people recommend only migrating the home user folders with the data and not transferring anything else (including settings) especially since you are migrating from a 2009 Intel Mac to an Apple Silicon Mac where there have been significant changes over the years (this would be what I would do if it were my system). Keep in mind you are moving from an Intel CPU to Apple Silicon M-series CPU so I think it would be better to get the most recent app installers to setup the new Mac. It is a good time to get rid of all the old baggage that may still get transferred with Migration Assistant. If you have some highly customized settings, then you can try to manually transfer their .plist and see how things go so you at least know what file(s) to revert.

FYI, I used Migration Assistant to migrate from an M1 Mac to an M2 Mac earlier this year and that did not go smoothly even though the M1 Mac was a complete clean setup with no old baggage and only the minimal number of third party apps necessary for work. Most of the third party software & settings transferred just fine, but I had issues with macOS settings for Apple apps which did not transfer. I was still finding macOS settings that had been reconfigured a month later and this was between Big Sur and Ventura. I cannot imagine going from El Capitan or High Sierra to Ventura. Keeping the transfer limited to the user accounts & data is the safest option and should be fine.

I also had to turn off my AppleID on the old Mac in order to use Migration Assistant (pain in the neck since it entailed a lot of extra work setting up the new Mac after the migration)...keep this in mind if you cannot launch Migration Assistant on the old Mac. During initial setup or login of the migrated user accounts I suggest avoiding logging into your AppleID until after you have logged in. There is a bug where you will likely need to logout of the AppleID in order to agree to the Terms & Conditions of the new OS/system, so best to log into the AppleID after you log into your macOS user account (even then I still had to logout of the AppleID because I had to agree to the Terms again). Check the System Settings on the new Mac after the migration to make sure there are no red marks in System Settings indicating something that must be updated (OS or Terms) before logging into your AppleID.

It is a good question. The 32 bit applications, drivers, and extensions clearly won't work on the Studio since it is too new for Mojave.

I know Migration Assistant back when people moved from PowerPC to Intel resulted in many issues of sluggishness when wholesale migrations were done.

When doing these migrations, if you get any do not enter over icons,

assume it is because of the compatibility of the older applications and drivers.