Migrating files from old system to new

Hi. I'm a bit stuck. My wife uses a white iMac 2.16Ghz running SL 10.6.8 and has been backing up her files and documents including photographs which are most valuable to her using Time Machine. She is going to try and install Mavericks on this machine but if it doesn't work out too well she has the chance of buying a used MacBook Pro running Mavericks which will become her main computer.

My question is whether all the Time Machine backups she has on the external HDD using 10.6.8 will be available for her to move to the new computer using Mavericks.

I had heard she could use Migration assistant to retrieve the old files and move them onto the new Mavericks computer. Is this right or not? Is there a better way of doing things?

Thanks for your help



PS meant also to ask if the Mavericks install goes well and she stays with the iMac will the TM backups she already has made still be available to her. IIRC I had an issue with my TM backups after upgrading my mac to mavericks which meant I had to delete the TM backups and start again.

 

Thanks for that. How about the time machine back up issue?

 

Thanks so much Freakin. Good to know and thanks for the link