Getting a new laptop need to know any way to image just my profile

[duzawe]

I want to take my programs and mieda with me with out lenghty installs and downloads.

Any help out there?

[xcorvis]

What OS? Windows and Mac have a built-in transfer/migration wizard. That will pull over everything in your user folder, but probably not your programs. If you want to move your programs over from the old computer to a new one (presumably with Windows Vista and different hardware), you have to start from scratch.

[computoman]

Dos, Apple osx and Bsd are probably the most friendly to moving apps easily. I had a linux machine die. I just swapped out the mb/cpu(amd to intel) and it booted right up. I only had to change a driver or two. I probably should have imaged to a larger drive though. I have done this with laptops also running linux.

More and more companies are going to what is called portable apps. (http://portableapps.com) If you use them, it can save you a boatload of setup time.

That being said most commercial programs do everything they can to prevent applications easily being able to move from one machine to another if for no other reason that to protect their software from being unfairly duplicated.