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I have a 2 TB internal hard drive with all of my files and information. Can I, or if I can, how do I transfer it all to a new computer?

I am going from Desktop to Desktop computer and I have tons of stuff I want to move over. The can ignore stuff like Notepad documents, pictures, music, etc. I can move over on a hard drive, but what about the personal stuff, like stuff on the C: Drive, eg. Appdata, Program Files x86, and the windows folder?

Eagledoc9075
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    You don't want to move the Windows folder, program folders etc, big mistake if you do. Programs have to be re-installed on the new PC, other personal files can just be copy and pasted to the new PC. – Moab Sep 24 '19 at 21:52
  • You could just make a backup and transfer the files, or you could simply move the old drive into the other computer. – sam1370 Sep 24 '19 at 22:19
  • @Eagledoc9075 see [tour] or [help] to resolve queries. Also, use @ to ping people. –  Sep 25 '19 at 05:43

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You should be able to move all of your program files and such pretty easily. You'll probably need to make a lot of folders, and put every program in a folder. For example, let's say you're moving notepad++ from your PC, to drive, to PC.

Make a folder on external drive titled Notepad++ (or whatever will help you remember). Copy the program into the folder Plug HDD into the PC you want to put Notepad++ onto. And then drag it to the desktop or wherever you want the program to go. If that doesn't work, you can try to backup your main INTERNAL HDD onto the EXTERNAL HDD.

You can follow this guide (https://www.windowscentral.com/how-backup-windows-10-automatically) on backing up an HDD to an external HDD. It has been easy for me in the past.

Hopefully I helped a bit, have a nice day!

7AN70
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    Most all Programs are not transferable, they have to be re-installed on the new PC. – Moab Sep 24 '19 at 21:49
  • Nearly all programs are transferrable _if_ the whole OS is transferred (i.e. essentially if you clone the entire old HD and throw away the new OS) – but most larger programs are indeed not transferrable if you try to drag & drop them one-by-one to a different OS. – u1686_grawity Sep 25 '19 at 04:43
  • @grawity Indeed, if you could back up just the registry — files that are part of the OS, which Windows deliberately makes it hard for you to copy or examine — and restore the relevant parts on another machine, then the apps would be transferrable. Backing up the whole machine and restoring to the new one accomplishes this. But what 7AN70 was saying about just copying and pasting generally will not work. – Ernest Friedman-Hill Sep 25 '19 at 12:59