Move Aperture 3 (Referenced) to New MacBook?
I currently have Aperture 3 (Referenced Masters) on my old 2007 Macbook and now have my new Macbook Pro. I originally used Migration Assistant to set up the new MBP (MA because the shop unfortunately set up the new machine with my User accont!!!) but this was mainly because I hoped apps like 'Office for Mac 2011' would work without problems. Microsoft being the prime example, it doesn't of course!! So now I need to jump through all of the MS hoops to get a Product Key again (I'm not surprised people pirate their stuff when they make legal ownership such a painful experience). Maybe time to kick Office off my machine and go with Pages and Numbers given the limited use I make of Word and Excel, and the fact I actually find Outlook quite a pig to work with. Anyway, that's another story. Without the (benefit?) of having Office working I really don't want to import all the junk that comes from years of system ownership and continual migrations. So, I plan to wipe the HD, re-install Lion and migrate manually, no big deal considering all my 'Mail' is IMAP, docs and iTunes music can be copied over together with any other things I decide I might need (e.g. the odd 'Pref' file).
I'm 90% certain I have this right from pulling various threads from the forum here but, where Aperture 3 is concerned would the correct approach be:
1) Install Aperture 3 from disc. Register etc.
2) Copy over Aperture library from old machine.
3) Connect the Referenced Masters drive and 'Consolidate' them all, given that the HD on this machine is big enough to house them.
I did wonder whether I could/should merely copy the Aperture ap from Apps on the old machine to the target device but am not sure whether this skips on part of the ap configuration from when the installer is used. I also considered whether I should free up space on my old machine, 'Consolidate' all the Masters back onto that and then copy the library across?
I'd judt like to make this is painless and error free as possible since, courtesy of Microsoft, Migration Assistant proved to be more problematic and time consuming than I'd hoped, especially given that the shop had screwed up my potential to use Set Up Assistant. I did think of wiping the drive and THEN using Setup Assistant as it had been suggested that this might leave Office in a working state. Others seem to think otherwise and that the hoops to get a new product key will still have to be jumped through (oddly I suspect that it's only legal users that get annoyed with the MS approach, illegal users wouldn't care a monkey's about product keys and would just download it!). I have to say that if I do scrap Office it will be the last MS product I ever buy.