Migrating Applications

[jcan]

Hello,

I have heard and read very positive comments about the Migration Assistant: It seems that nearly everyone agrees that the migration between two Macs is easy and flawless. I am waiting for the new MacBooks to come to market, and when they do, I will be probably have a first-hand experience myself!

However, I have a question: I can understand how the OS migrates things like the home folder, the keychain, etc. as they are distinct items in the disk and easy to locate. What I cannot figure out is how applications are migrated, since they involve several items in the disk, such as the .app file itself, .plist files, etc. This becomes even more difficult with complex applications such as the Parallels Desktop I am using, which I really wonder whether it can be migrated and work just as it does now in my MBP.

Is the application migration (with complex cases such as Parallels) really so accurate, or the OS cannot import things like preferences and settings, and they therefore have to be set up again in the new machine?

 

[DeltaMac]

My experience with the migration assistant is pretty good (maybe about a hundred times for me in a service shop) Most apps and settings are transferred successfully, so I will predict that you won't have any problems with the migration tool that you get when you first start up your new Mac. I think the types that are not complete would be those that are installs involving files that are placed in the System folder - like antivirus software, some pro-level apps, and some types of utility apps. In the case of Parallels, the VM file would certainly be OK, and Parallels itself might work OK - or just reinstall the Parallels software from the original disks to get it to work properly. Other apps might need the same reinstall.
It's just a situation where you discover some apps that don't work after the migration - and you normally fix that with a reinstall of that app. Some apps you can predict may need reinstall - most simply work without any fix at all after a migration.

 

[djackmac]

My experience with the migration assistant is pretty good (maybe about a hundred times for me in a service shop)

Same here if not many more. The migration engine with 10.6 has been a little buggy like for instance with printers and sometimes the numbers don't all add up even though the data seems to be there, but overall I rarely have problems with apps functioning after migrating. The problems I see usually stem from something being wrong with the target volume such as a bad drive or a corrupt file which if there is one block that it can't copy it will stop the whole process cold. In most cases when I'm trying to migrate from a questionable or failing drive, I'll create a dummy user first. Then get the OS up to the latest updates. Then I will set the energy settings to never sleep (sleep and migration can cause transfer issues) and run migration assistant from the utilities folder. This way if it does bomb out in the middle of a migration you can easily determine from what folder, and then with a little more sniffing around, which file or file(s) is causing it. Then once everything has come across to your liking you can wipe the dummy account.

 

[jcan]

I have an additional question regarding migration: What happens with the virtual Windows 7 OS which resides inside Parallels Desktop in my current Macbook Pro? Will Windows be able to recognize the new Mac hardware, or will they need to be re-installed along with new drivers?

 

[djackmac]

The VMWare/parallels/virtual box OS and settings will come right over fine. If you were running bootcamp however, you would either need to repartition/reload or image/restore with a utility like Winclone since it bootcamp volumes are actually separate partitions on the drive running outside of the OSX volume.

 

[jcan]

Thanks a lot for your kind reply, djackmac.

However, what I don't get and I would like you to explain to me is the following: When Windows is running inside Parallels, doesn't it use its own drivers to interact with the hardware? If that is the case, won't it have wrong drivers after a migration since the drivers will be related to a hardware configuration that is not there anymore?

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

No, virtual machines do NOT have direct access to hardware like they would if they were running as a native operating system. Any interaction that a virtual machine has with USB drives, CD/DVD drives and other hardware is done through a software abstraction layer managed by the virtual machine itself (in your case, Parallels).