cindylobb said:

My mother in law has a Dell desktop that we bought for my in laws as an anniversary gift about 8 yrs ago.  It runs XP.  As a Christmas gift, my brother in law got her a new laptop.  I know it's an Acer and I think it runs Windows 7.  I think there is a "free/lite" version of Word and Excel.

 

My question is:  How do we go about moving files and programs from her old machine to the new one?  If we have the old disks for her Word and Excel programs can we install them on the new machine?  Or should we look into getting an upgrade?  I think it is going to be mostly data files from word and/or Excel and probably her taxes through TurboTax.  I will probably be the one to set the machine up and move the files since I'm the most tech-savy locally.  lol  so where do I start?

 

Thank you…

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

 

Cindy Lobb

Westland, MI

Cindy

My wife has a laptop with Windows 7 on it, but we did not have anything to move over so I will take a stab in the dark.

First off free/lite ver of word and excel that are on the new computer may (and I strongly think) are a ver that will require purchase in 30, 60, or 90 days to continue to use.

As for the old ver of Word and Excel that you have the disks for I am guessing that they are the 2003 ver and am not sure if they will work on Windows 7 if you have the home ver.  If you have Windows 7 Professional ver or Ultimate ver there is a virtual computer feature that will allow you to run things in XP mode.

Now for transferring over data I understand that Windows 7 has a feature that allows you to connect the two computers with a cable and transfer the data.  Programs most likely will not work if transferred,  they need to be installed from the original media to function properly.

One other way to transferee data is to copy it to a thumb drive on the old computer and then put it in to the new computer and copy it to the hard drive.