Program to backup/restore applications ONLY

wam7 · 18 Jan 2018 at 13:48

I'm doing a fresh Win 10 install and wondered if there were any reliable programs to backup and restore applications (+data) only. Similar to the way that Titanium Backup works for Android. I do not want to clone the drive as in Acronis, just the applications to restore on another Win 10 install.

I tried PCTrans by EaseUS Todo and that worked OK for some programs but not so good for others.

jpaul · 18 Jan 2018 at 21:31

windows applications are typically writing data into the registry and also storing config data in the indivual users folders, so backing them up is not really practical;
it is better to just keep the exe install binaries in a folder and also to export the user specific data from the old system and re-import to the new.

Raumarik · 20 Jan 2018 at 22:21

You'll never get one that does this reliably for all programs, it'll always be a mess and one you may not notice immediately but only when you got to use a specific function or update etc.

AHarvey · 21 Jan 2018 at 11:20

Raumarik said:
You'll never get one that does this reliably for all programs, it'll always be a mess and one you may not notice immediately but only when you got to use a specific function or update etc.

I would also imagine it would need to be installed prior to the programs so that it could monitor what was changed during the installation process

Raumarik · 21 Jan 2018 at 20:02

There was a problem I used that did exactly that but the name I've forgotten, I don't think it was massively unusual. We used it to grab changes to the registry etc which could then be used to create custom .reg files or standalone installers which would replicate it identically files/reg etc.

wam7 · 23 Jan 2018 at 15:41

Well I managed to find a program that does a great job with the obvious caveats. It is Laplink PCMover. It tells you the programs that should transfer with no issues and the ones that are questionable and then others that are a no-no. I'm really impressed how well it worked on Lightroom and many other programs.

http://web.laplink.com/pcmover_feature_overview/