Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The concept of this software seems straight forward and promisses to move your programs from one machine to another and even from an earlier version OS to the same or newer version OS. From the specification it seems like you can move individual programs, but during the actual process the software scans your entire source drive and then begins the transfer. Once the transfer is complete you can select individual programs to install from the list on the destination PC - if they are colored "green". The inital scan of my source drive took 4 hours to complete before the actual transfer even started. In all fairness to this software manufacturer, I never completed the transfer. I had so much time invested in just scanning the source hard drive that during that time I read many of the negative 1-star reviews posted on Amazon.com. I decided the risk to recover one licensed program I had on my source drive was not worth the possibility of screwing up my new clean load laptop. I wanted to move one large commercial program from my Windows XP Pro SP2 - 32 bit PC to a new Windows 7 Pro SP1 - 64 bit OS laptop. During that initial scan I also also called techical support at Laplink. They could not guarantee that the program I needed to move would transfer properly. They said it might, but that I might have to re-enter the license for it after I launched it on my new machine. The whole reason I purchased PCMover was to avoid having to enter the license since I no longer have that. I aborted and uninstalled PCMover on my source and destination computers at that point. The program is suppose to save you time and effort, but I actually think your time savings could be very little in the end depending on whether you were moving the entire drive contents or just one program like I needed to. Also, be aware of the licensing retrictions of this software. Especially if you are looking to purchase an open-box or used version from the Amazon Marketplace. Here's the statement that comes printed on the User Guide in the box and is also displayed when you install PCMover on the destination PC during the software registration process. "Serial Number Limitation: A single license of PCmover may be used on a single PC or for a migration from an original source PC to a new PC. Use on multiple PCs, or for migrations from additional source PCs, is prohibited with a single license. Please visit [...]to purchase additional licenses." This software will work multiple times for one user only between one source PC and one destination PC. You cannot use it to migrate data or programs from one machine to another and then from that second machine to a third PC. Nor, can you complete the registration process duirng the installation of PCMover on the destination PC if it has already been used and registered to someone else's email address. The license is no longer valid at that point. Bottom line - read all the reviews and then decide if it's still worth the risk and time to try PCMover with the poor results that may others have reported. If you do try this software, make sure you have full backups of both your source and destination PC's before you start the transfer process. You may need them.