Move Installed Windows Programs to a New PC

Name: WinAppMigrator
Author: Randy Northrup

WinAppMigrator turns an app installed on one Windows PC into one installer you can run on another. Even when the app is on an old Windows 7 PC across your network, on a drive pulled out of a dying machine, or on an image of one, and the original installer is long gone.

Download 0.6.0 Get Started

Free and open source, MIT license · Windows 10 and 11, x64 · Signed by Randy Northrup

WinAppMigrator with an app selected, showing how big its installer can be, whether that fits, and what goes in it

When It Helps

Moving to a New PC

An app comes along without hunting for its setup file, its license file, or its settings.

Getting started

The Old PC Will Not Start

Take its drive out, connect it to a working PC, and build an installer from an app on it. If the drive may be failing, make an image of it first and build from the image, since reading a failing drive can finish it off.

From a drive or a disk image

Leaving Windows 7, Vista, 8 or 8.1

An app from one goes onto Windows 10 or 11, with what was different there taken care of: 32-bit Windows, VirtualStore, and the DirectX 9 runtime.

Apps from older Windows

The Old PC Still Runs, on Your Network

Run the small, signed WinAppMigrator Client on it, type the code it shows, and pick an app. Only what the build needs crosses the network, encrypted. Nothing has to be taken out of the PC.

From a PC over the network

The Setup File Is Gone, or the Company Is

It works backward from what is installed: the app's files, its registry entries, its services, and the Microsoft runtimes it needs.

How it works

The Same App on Several PCs

An installer it builds can preview, install and uninstall from a command prompt, so a script can install the same app on each PC.

Command line

How It Works

Pick an App

From this PC, a drive from another PC plugged into this one, a .vhd or .vhdx image the app attaches read-only, or another PC on your network.
See What Goes In

The screen says how big the installer can be, whether it fits, and what it holds. Untick what you do not want, and tick what looks related that exact names missed.
Build the Installer

You get one .exe, named after what it holds. An app too big for one comes as an .exe and a data file that stay together.
Run It on the Other PC

It checks its package's hashes before writing anything, installs, then reads back what it installed and checks that. If anything goes wrong, or you cancel, it puts back what it did, except a runtime it installed. It leaves an uninstaller in Settings.

The installer, showing the install location, whether it is signed, and what it sets up beyond files

The whole journey, step by step

What Goes in an Installer

Program Files, found through MSI and Inno Setup records, NSIS logs, App Paths, and folders named exactly for the product.
Registry entries: the app's machine-wide keys, its COM classes, file types, link protocols, menu commands and shell extensions.
Services and drivers, scheduled tasks, shortcuts, firewall rules, fonts, and the environment variables that hold the app's path.
Runtimes: the Visual C++ and modern .NET runtimes it needs, downloaded when you build and put inside, so they install without internet, unless one could not be downloaded then.
User data and license data, if you choose. It never gets around activation, and a license tied to the old machine may need reactivating.
Never credentials. Values and files that look like passwords, tokens or private keys are left out and named before you build.

Everything that goes in, and what does not

Before You Rely on It

Every push to the project moves five real open-source apps, 7-Zip, PuTTY, Eclipse Mosquitto, windows_exporter and Git LFS, from one test machine to fresh ones, and asks Windows itself to use what was restored. Those are small, well-behaved apps on clean machines. Desktop Windows 10 and 11 on x64 have not been run in those tests, and an app with online activation, a driver being loaded, and a restart afterward have not been tried at all.

So try an installer before you rely on it, and make an image of a failing drive before you read it. It is only for software you are allowed to move.

Limitations · Requirements and testing

Get It

Download WinAppMigrator-v0.6.0.exe from the latest release. There is nothing to install.
Run it. Windows asks for administrator approval, because reading another drive and installing services both need it. Its signature names Randy Northrup.
Pick an app, and the screen shows you what would go in its installer before you click anything.

Download 0.6.0 How to Check the Download