[mrurmil]

Hi all,

My MB Pro will come in tomorrow. I'm going to be using Migration assistant on my PowerBook G4 (w/ Leopard) to move all my stuff over. Will everything go smoothly? Is there anything I should do on the PowerBook before I migrate? I removed a lot of applications I don't use with AppZapper and various other files I no longer needed. I will also repair permissions and clear caches before migrating.

My main question is: Will the Universal binary applications I currently have installed run natively on Intel (not using Rosetta) once they are migrated over? Or will I have to reinstall them?

Thanks

[Simon]

Personally I would only use MA to migrate documents and settings when you go from PPC->Intel. I would migrate apps afterwards by hand. Some apps will require a reinstall anyway (unfortunately this is even the case for Apple's own iWork!) and others might give you trouble because they aren't proper UB.

Some people who used MA to migrate all their stuff from PPC->Intel ran into quite some issues later on. I'd rather invest a bit of time and get it right from the start than sort out issues later on. Of course YMMV.

[mrurmil]

Thanks for your help. Is it possible to move over only certain items? For example, mail in Mail.app, Safari settings/bookmarks, iTunes music, Address book entries, etc.

[Simon]

Yes, you can chose between apps, users accounts, documents, settings, and network settings to be moved over by MA.

Personally I would migrate everything except for the apps. Once MA's finished I'd install apps that come with installers. And then I'd finally copy over the remaining apps by hand. Check their info window to make sure they're UB or Intel native. If not see if you can download such a version from the developer's website. Only use PPC apps if there is absolutely no UB version available.

If you want to play it really safe you could also chose to not migrate settings. Later you can copy over settings manually one by one and make sure they don't cause any problems. But that's only if you really have time.

[mduell]

I suggest not using MA at all. It's handy for the absolute noob, but it just has too many issues people have run into, particularly across architectures.

Install all the apps fresh with the current/latest version you have a license for.

Copy over the documents/files with target disk mode (connect the two Macs by Firewire, boot the PB while holding the 't' key).

[Stuphalina]

Actually, I did just that last week, and i worked perfectly. Saved me hours, and I am no noob.

[mrurmil]

Just finished migrating over and reinstalling apps manually. It is not bad at all since when you migrate user data all the preference files are transferred over as well so when you reinstall the apps the settings are preserved.

Thanks for the help!