It can be a daunting proposition. You have a brand spanking new desktop or laptop PC but all your files, folders, settings and software is still on your old machine.

One option, assuming the operating systems on both machines are the same, is to manually copy data from the old PC to the new one using physical media like floppy or optical discs, flash memory drives or an external hard drive. Alternatively, you can connect both machines to a home network and transfer data and settings that way. Either way, the process is tedious and the chances are, you will miss some key files or settings since many Windows applications in particular store key data in obscure places like the system registry or in profile files.