Mac OS X Migration Assistant

I just bought a new iMac for home, to replace an old iMac, primarily because of running out of local hard disk space, but also to have more speed and memory and so-on. So, for the first time, I tried the Migration Assistant.

Wow.

Whenever I buy a new Windows computer, I literally spend several days loading software and copying files. Getting this new Mac going took about 3 hours, and that was just time data transfer time, not my time loading CD-ROMs.

It's very simple, just connect a firewire cable between the Macs, turn the new Mac and old Mac on, and the Migration Assistant will prompt you for what pieces of information that you want to migrate. I chose them all (default) and simply waited for everything to get done. When I was finished, my new iMac was configured just like my old iMac, desktop icon clutter and all. It was really amazing.

I don't know of a utility that does this kind of thing in the Windows world, other than ghosting a hard disk, which is sort of a brute force approach. I'm not even sure if it would be possible in the Windows world, with all of the registry settings that every program might use.

One thing is for sure, it's pretty painless to buy a new Mac and use it right away!