Buying a new computer is a bit like buying a new house. When you finally buy one, the journey is far from over: you are now facing the task of somehow moving all of your from the old one to the new one. And sure, you can do that yourself (eventually), but if you are looking for an easy transfer – you’ll need some help.
So how do you transfer everything from one computer to another? How do you move programs? How do you copy profiles? Let’s find out.
Zinstall is widely considered to be the “deluxe” transfer software manufacturer. It claims to have the highest success rate, extremely easy to use software and responsive and friendly support.
Let’s review what it does, and how it does it.
Before we can review a transfer, we need to first ask ourselves – what should actually be transferred to a new computer?
Actually, it’s probably easier to say what you do not want transferred: Windows itself. The new laptop or desktop already has Windows preinstalled, with all the right drivers and hardware interface components. We don’t want to overwrite that with the old Windows. In fact, we could well be in a situation where the new Windows is actually a new version, such as transfer from Windows 10 to Windows 11. So we can clearly say that Windows transfer is a no-no.
What we do want to transfer is what makes your computer feel like home: your applications and programs, your profiles, accounts, personalization, passwords, customizations, emails, documents, and in general all user files. And no, just copying files with a USB stick is not enough. Better than nothing, sure, but files are just one part of the environment, and who wants to spend hours or even days rebuilding everything else?
Zinstall WinWin is the most popular (and most consumer-friendly) transfer software in the Zinstall family. It’s purpose-built for the specific task of transferring files and programs from one computer to another.
Ease Of Use
WinWin is probably the easiest computer transfer product out there. In a typical transfer, it literally asks you just one question: “Which computer is this?”
Once you tell it which computer is which, it shows you a big green “Go!” button. Press it, and your transfer starts.
That’s it. No technical questions, no complicated configurations, no setting up connections or configuring network settings. You don’t need to know about partitions or file systems. It just does it all for you.
Of course, if you like reading instructions, WinWin comes with an extremely comprehensive user guide, with screenshots of every step and probably every possible contingency out there. But it’s a bit like the 500 page user manual that comes with your car. In most cases, you just start driving, without reading it.
Don’t let the “click one button to get it done” approach fool you. Just like your car, being simple to use doesn’t mean that the technology under the hood is simple as well. In fact, it’s usually the other way around: the simpler it is for the driver, the more advanced is the engineering that went into making the product.
WinWin is no different. The company has been making transfer software for more than 15 years, and it shows. To our knowledge, WinWin is the only product that is able to transfer applications generically, i.e. without relying on the manufacturer’s install information and without being “familiar” with the application in advance.
Zinstall users report success even in transfers of custom applications, legacy software, obscure packages that were developed by companies 10 years out of business – WinWin is extremely good in transferring even unusual applications.
It goes without saying that it will transfer all of your files, user profiles, accounts, emails and so on.
As a telling example, in testing, WinWin not only transferred Google Chrome, but that Chrome actually had all the user personal settings, logins, and info. In fact, it was still logged into Gmail and had the same tabs as were open on the old computer.
Same experience was with Outlook (all email accounts and passwords in place), Quickbooks and other software.
How long does a transfer take? Answer to that question can vary pretty wildly, since it depends on how much data you actually have on your computer. With that said, we can judge how efficient a transfer product is by comparing its transfer speed with max capacity speed of the network that it is running on.
In our lab, we have performed 2 transfer time test.
Test 1: Transfer from a Windows 10 computer with 130GB of data, to a new Windows 11 laptop. Both computers were connected to a regular 1Gbit/s residential router.
Total transfer time in this case was 51 minutes.
Test 2: This time, we have connected both computers to a slower wireless network, able to deliver a sustained transfer speed of about 80Mbit/s. Note that this network is more than 10 times slower than the one in Test 2.
Predictably, transfer time was significantly affected by network speed, with total transfer time of 3 hours and 48 minutes.
The reason that transfer time did not increase x10 after decreasing network speed x10, is that transfer means much more than just copying files, and those “housekeeping” tasks take similar time regardless of network speed.
Zinstall is able to achieve incredibly high transfer speeds, close to maximum possible capacity of the network, by applying an advanced transfer algorithm, which optimizes the speed “in flight” according to what resources are available. In our test, it actually took longer to copy the files manually with Windows Explorer, than to perform a full transfer using Zinstall.
Zinstall supports Windows 11, 10, 8.1/8, 7, Vista and XP. It is able to transfer in any combination of those systems, such as for example transfer from an HP Windows 10 to a Lenovo Windows 11, transfer from a Windows 11 desktop to a Windows 11 laptop and any other pairing.
One thing to note is that it does not transfer physical devices, so you do need to connect your printers and scanners separately on the new computer.
Sure, it’s super easy to use, and requires no computer knowledge to successfully perform a transfer. But what is something still goes wrong, or you just need some guidance?
Any product, especially one that you use for an important task like moving to another computer, is only as good as the support that its vendor deliver.
Zinstall provides support on a variety of channels. You can call them, you can email them, and you can use the live chat feature on zinstall.com . They even have an automatic tool that you can run on the computer to submit a comprehensive diagnostic report, so that they can quickly understand what’s going on and what should be the next steps.
In our view, live chat is the star of this show: it’s live so you don’t have to wait, and it allows written communication which makes it so much easier to convey a point across, especially if you need any technical assistance.
Zinstall agents that we talked to were knowledgeable and able to respond both to general info / sales questions, and to technical support inquiries.
For most of the review, the product we were referencing is Zinstall WinWin, the one that is built for transfer from one computer to another. There is another popular Zinstall product (albeit less popular than WinWin) – Zinstall Migration Kit Pro. It has additional transfer capabilities, and is more expensive. So what’s the difference, and which should you use?
The answer is pretty simple.
If you are transferring from an old computer to a new computer, both computers can be brought online, and there are no technical issues with either one – use WinWin. It’s super simple to use, and cheaper than Pro.
So when do you use the Pro version?
– If your old computer is dead, and all you have is its hard drive – Pro can transfer directly off that drive
– If you can only get one computer online at a time – Pro can transfer via a USB hard drive instead of network
– If your new computer’s main drive is a small SSD and does not have enough free space for all the stuff from the old computer – Pro can split the transfer between a small SSD and a larger hard drive.
Not sure which one to use? Use WinWin. Zinstall allows to upgrade from WinWin to Pro by paying just the price difference between them, so there is no risk in choosing WinWin at first when you are not sure. If WinWin is enough, you save some money, if it isn’t – you lose nothing.
Zinstall WinWin is probably the most effective and well-rounded transfer software that we’ve tested. It allows everyone, even those of us with no technical knowledge, to perform a transfer all files and apps from one computer to another, and to start using the new computer as if nothing happened.
It is not the cheapest option out there, sure, but as with most things in life, you get what you pay for. When you choose a product to trust to transfer your data, and to save you days of work, it makes sense to get the best. The small difference in price would be negligible compared to the amount of grief a cheap and ineffective transfer product can cause you.
Above all, it is the completeness and seamlessness of the transfer that made the Zinstall transfer experience a cut above the rest.
Plus, the fact that you can get an actual human to answer questions, and even out side of regular business hours, just makes the whole experience as pleasant as it gets.
You can get Zinstall WinWin here.
