How to Transfer Installed Programs to Another PC on Windows 10

How do I transfer installed programs to another PC on Windows 10?

If you're wondering "How do I transfer installed programs to another PC on Windows 10" in your mind, which way is the first one that jumps out? Copy and paste?

Many people have ever run into such a headache – there is a large number of important program file data on your old PC and when you replace it with a new PC, you don’t want to lose them or reinstall them but you have no idea how to keep them.

For moving installed apps from one computer to another, the standard copy-and-paste procedure does not work. Many people may wonder how to move an application from one machine to another. Fortunately, there are several additional options.

In this post, we'll show you how to transfer the installed programs from your old computer to the new one on Windows 10

4 ways to transfer installed programs from one computer to another on Windows 10/11

Here are 4 effective ways to transfer programs to a new computer, you can choose one according to your needs.

🚚 Method 1	Migrate programs via USB
🔗 Method 2	Login to Microsoft account for program migration
⛅ Method 3	Migrate installed apps with OneDrive cloud
🔧 Method 4	Transfer installed program with data transfer tool (Recommended)

Method 1. Migrate programs via USB

1. Right-click on the program and select “Properties”. Then, select “Shortcut” to check the root directory.

2. Zip all the files and programs and copy them to a USB drive.

3. Plug the USB stick into your new computer and then, copy the migrated programs and files to the disk of the computer.

Method 2. Login to Microsoft account for program migration

This is a good method to migrate an individual application but you can only move the programs installed from Microsoft Store.

1. Login to your personal Microsoft account on the computer and you can preview all the installed programs in the app library of the Microsoft Store.

2. Hit “Windows + I” simultaneously to bring up “Settings”.

3. Click on “App & Features”. In the popup window, the list where there’re all the installed programs will appear.

4. Scroll to the program you want to move and click on “Move”. In the dropdown list, select a destination drive and hit “Move” again.

5. After successfully moving the program, it will appear on the USB or the removable disk. If you want to restore the program or move it to other drives, you can repeat the steps above.

6. After the migration is completed, unplug the USB or the removable disk and plug it into the new PC. Copy the migrated program to the drive on the new computer.

Note:
1. If the “Move” button is greyed out, it means it’s an unremovable application of Windows 10; if you can only see the “Modify” button, it means it’s a traditional desktop application that you can’t move either.
2. This method has its own limits because it can’t be applied to all software on the computer.

Method 3. Migrate installed apps with OneDrive cloud

In this way, you’ll upload the programs and files from your old computer to the OneDrive cloud and download them from the OneDrive cloud by logging in to the same OneDrive account on the new Windows 10 computer.

1. Login to the OneDrive cloud using the Microsoft account and upload the program’s folder from the disk to the cloud.

2. The uploaded program folder will appear in the cloud.

3. log in to the same Microsoft account on the other Windows computer and now, you can locally download the program folder from the cloud. After the download, you’ll find there’s a zip file, and in this case, you need to unzip it to the target drive for installation.

Note: There’s only 5GB of free space on the OneDrive cloud and it may not be able to contain all your program folders. Meanwhile, when using OneDrive, network condition is a factor to be considered. If the network speed is too low, the upload and download can take quite a lot of time.

Method 4. Transfer installed program with data transfer tool (Recommended)

If you want to migrate programs in bulk quickly, I recommend using AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to migrate installed programs to another Windows 10 PC without losing data.

With this tool, the situation that migrated apps can’t be used normally due to data missing won’t happen again because the partition assistant’s "Disk Clone" will clone all files including boot files from one drive to another easily and safely.

 Step 1. Connect your new disk to your Windows PC. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. In the main interface, click Clone -> Clone Disk.

Step 2. To copy a disk to a smaller one, here you need to select Clone Disk Quickly, and then, click Next.

Step 3. Here you can choose your source disk, AOMEI Partition Assistant allows you to clone both the boot drive and data drive to another new SSD, so here you can choose any hard drive according to your needs. Then, click Next.

Step 4. Then, choose the new disk as the destination disk, you need to check the option of “Optimize the performance of SSD” for optimizing the SSD’s performance during the cloning process. Click Next.

Step 5. AOMEI Partition Assistant allows you to edit partitions on the destination disk. Or you can choose to repartition hard drive after the clone. Click Next.

Step 6. Here will give you a note about how to boot the computer after clone if you are cloning the system disk. Click Next.

Step 7. Finally, click Apply to submit the whole operation.

Note: Now, all you need to do is install the target disk on another PC and boot it.

Conclusion

If you’re still worried about how to transfer programs and copy installed software to another computer, you can refer to the 4 methods given in the post. Logging in Microsoft account for app migration is good for users who want to migrate an individual app but not every app can be migrated. Uploading program files to the cloud and downloading them again is also good for the migration of only a few apps. If you want to quickly and securely transfer apps in bulk, we recommend AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

With the partition assistant, you can migrate apps in bulk and easily transfer them to another Windows 10 PC without reinstalling. If you want to migrate installed apps within one PC, you can try App Mover. With these features, you can solve the problem of insufficient storage space and easily allocate free space for your disks.

FAQs about transferring installed programs to another PC on Win 10

Can I manually copy and paste program files to transfer them?
Manually copying and pasting program files is not recommended. Many programs have dependencies in the Windows Registry and system directories, so a simple copy may not work correctly.

Can I transfer programs without reinstalling them?
Some programs support migration without a full reinstall. Check the program's documentation or settings for any built-in transfer features.

Can I transfer programs from a 32-bit to a 64-bit system or vice versa?
It's generally not recommended to transfer programs between different architecture systems due to compatibility issues. It's better to reinstall programs on the new system.