Transfering Program/Files to New Computer

I am contemplating buying a new computer, probably a Dell, irrespective of current bad news about this company. The major task that I destest is transfering programs & files from the old computer to the new computer.

Any advice as to what I can do to minimize my anexity about doing this (files/program transfer)?

In the past I had to locate my programs, they're located somewhere in the room/closet, etc.. Load the programs that I wanted to retain on the new computer. Burn a copy of my files to CD-ROMs from the old computer, load the files from the CD-ROM to the new computer, etc., this took hours and days because I found another program/file that I didn't transfer initially.

Any suggestions on a prorgram that can do this for me without the aggravation?

 

I always find that it is easiest and fastest to restore from a backup image. External drive are cheap now and keep you secure just in case.

 

I'm sure you realize that programs can not be transferred in their installed state. So, the programs you want have to be reinstalled on your new machine.

The data "variable" files are a different matter. You can as someone suggested pruchase an external USB drive and transfer the files from your old machine to the external drive then move it to your new machine and copy the files from it to your new machine. This method has value in that after you are done transferring files you can use the external drive as backup.

Or, you could network the two machines and copy files from the old machine to the new one via the ethernet connection. Slower than the first method but quicker than burning CD's.