Moving programs from Windows 7 to Windows 10 Pro

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What is the easiest (or best) way to move programs from Windows 7 to Windows 10 Pro? Most of my programs were downloaded. For the others, I still have the installation discs but they might be specific to Windows 7.

I have all my installation executable files on the Windows 7 box. I could copy those to Windows 10 and run them on Windows 10, but some executables are probably specific for Windows 7.

I could probably determine what website to find the downloads again by looking at the properties of the executable files on my Windows 7 box.

I have a Belarc Report that shows what programs I have. Some programs show a license number in the report. Just to be safe, I’ll try and look IN all my programs to see if there is a license number and write the license number on paper.

Someone at work suggested I use a file moving program, but that probably would not move required files that are in an obscure folder.

For what it is worth… I use the free version of “Ease US Todo Backup” and I also use Carbonite. Most of my executable files are not saved by Carbonite, but I could, but then again, there may be required program files elsewhere that I would not know about.

Thanks

David

PS – I haven’t looked in the Win 7 forum. Maybe I’ll find my answer there.

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If you have the original install disks, downloaded ISOs or installer files, you can use thowe to reinstall the programs on the Win10. for the latter two, just copy them to the Win10 machine and run them. Most programs that run on Win7 will also run on Win10. You can try installing them as is, and if you have problems you can try compatibility mode. The exception, of course, will be programs that require Adobe Flash b/c it is EOL.

You will, however, need the license key for those programs that are licensed. Belarc Advisor may help you with obtaining the license key, but if you downloaded the program from the the Internet, you should have the email containing the license key. You can download the latest version of Advisor from Belarc.

You can’t just “copy” or “move” a program from one computer to another. It has to be installed.

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Thanks PKCano – I was 99.99% sure copied programs would not run. Therefore, I was almost sure that using a file mover program or copying the program files from my backups would not work. I also recall years ago from my old IBM-XT and IBM-AT days that some files are stored in specific locations. I wonder if that is still the case these days, but I’ll save that topic for another day.

Since I generally save all my email, I can probably search for those license numbers. If I did it properly in the beginning, I would have saved those emails with license numbers in a separate folder.

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I make it a habit to write the license key on the disk I save the installer to, and include a text file on the same disk with the Key as well.

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@DWC121, we’ve had good success with PC Mover Professional. It copies both files and programs, with their settings, to a new computer. My wife did that when she got her Windows 10 computer, downgrading from a Windows 7 PC.

The software is not free of charge, but IMHO it’s well worth it as it has saved us a ton of time and headaches.

 

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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