The Ol' Swicharoo

[nayaminfenrir]

I have an older laptop that is starting to show its age. I use it specifically for work related tasks like invoicing customers and emails. I desperately want to get a new laptop but absolutely need the existing invoice program I use.
Is there any way for me to buy a new laptop and copy the HDD from the old one and have it work exactly the same? Or, am I dreaming and should start looking for new invoice software. The biggest problem is that they no longer sell this program that just works perfectly for me. Any advice would be much appreciated!!

[Arkanna]

You could remove the drive from the new machine, clone the old drive over to it, throw it back in the new laptop, turn it on and pray. Depending on the OS on the old drive, it may work right after a few reboots, or it might not. What OS are you talking about here?

[orinthia]

You can probably convert your old laptop's whole install into a virtual machine, https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=converter It's a free download I think. There's plenty of guides online to help with this if you choose this route. Doing a straight clone and hoping it doesn't shit itself on the new hardware is a big chance, especially with some laptop's device drivers and stuff. Though it's not like you lose anything but some time by trying that out. Make sure to make a backup of your new machine's install before mucking it up with drive cloning, and you may as well make a backup of your old machine to try and preserve your software should it kick the bucket while messing with stuff. Can use something like Paragon Backup and Recovery, there's a free version that works pretty decently.

Though I'm guessing you don't have any installation files for the software in question since you're looking into this. What was the software anyway? If it's old enough, it might be archived somewhere as abandonware unless it was a really specific piece of businessware. Could also see if it runs after just copying the program's folder (it may also have more settings folders under your user account, will need to dig in there to be sure), ; sometimes stuff can work without needing the formal install but it's not something to count on.

[nayaminfenrir]

The OS on the old rig is Windows 7, so not terribly old. The software in question is one of the earlier generations of Intuit Invoicing Manager. It was a cheap $30 software that I bought 6 years ago or so. They stopped making it in favor of the newer larger bundled software they sell, which seems so complicated to me. They've been trying to get me to update it for years every time I boot up the software, I never have with fear they'll somehow break it! I have a friend in a similar business that purchased it around the same time I did, updated it and it no longer emails invoices and has become rather buggy for him.

[orinthia]

Just looked on their website, they're pushing their online monthly services pretty hard over standalone software, where their $200 standalone version can't do automatic invoices. http://quickbooks.intuit.com/pro/ , yeah just trying to cash in on a good product.

What version number is it? Do you remember if it used a unique key to register or did it just work after install (is there an option to input a key in its menus, like under help or somesuch)? You'd end up doing something pretty complicated to try and preserve this if you went the VM or drive clone route. With a VM you'd only have to do it once, sacrifice a ton of drive space for it but it can be slapped onto any system and run easily. Cloning the drive would likely still need you to reinstall windows (worst case), though you can do it without completely losing everything installed.

You'd just need a spare drive or two and a lot of time to mess with this unless you can find a disc or some old installer somewhere. If it was popular then those old versions got released online somewhere at some point.

[Arkanna]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/INTUIT-QUICK...item43de4c1463

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Quickbooks-I...item3aac519891

If I'm reading you right, you don't have the installation media for the program though you never specifically said that. One of the above links could work for you.

*edit* Additionally, Windows 7 is pretty good about being thrown into a new machine and still managing to start up. So either the copy-to-VM method or the drive clone method has a strong chance of working.

[Bardicrune]

Cloning primarily depends on the driver used for the HDD on the old vs new system. If the old system used AHCI to control its HDD, you should be ok. It will boot on the new PC without a BSoD (blue screen of death). Although you WILL have to find/install all drivers for the new system. If it used ATA to control the HDD you will not be able to boot it without re-installing the OS (which may break the program depending on registry entries required).

The guaranteed way to do it is to do a P2V (physical to virtual) conversion of the old system and run it in a virtual machine (VMWare or VirtualBox).

[Arkanna]

Good call Bardicrune, I had forgotten that AHCI -> ATA or vice versa is 100% a blue screener.

[nayaminfenrir]

Thanks a million for the info, much appreciated. I'll try the VM route.