Two into one

[DSmaC]

I've got two older Macbook's, 1st is a late 09 the second is a 2010. Both have Mountain Lion OS, 10.8.4
I just bought a used Macbook Pro with the i5 (also with Mountain Lion 10.8.4) and would like to merge both of the older computers to it. Each one has different programs that I use (one was for personal use the second is for work and now I just want to cary one around) but as you can imagine I have all but three of the install disks.
I can do without one of the programs but that still leaves one on each Mac I don't have the install disk for.
Any way I can just move everything to an external drive and then install the whole group onto the newer computer?
Thanks

 

[velocityg4]

I've got two older Macbook's, 1st is a late 09 the second is a 2010. Both have Mountain Lion OS, 10.8.4
I just bought a used Macbook Pro with the i5 (also with Mountain Lion 10.8.4) and would like to merge both of the older computers to it. Each one has different programs that I use (one was for personal use the second is for work and now I just want to cary one around) but as you can imagine I have all but three of the install disks.
I can do without one of the programs but that still leaves one on each Mac I don't have the install disk for.
Any way I can just move everything to an external drive and then install the whole group onto the newer computer?
Thanks

You can use "Migration Assistant" over your network. I'd plug in via Ethernet and disable Airport to speed things up. Migration Assistant is found in you /Applications/Utilities folder.

However, some programs will require you to re-input the license key so you will need it handy. If you lost the key sometimes you can find a program online that will retrieve them for you.

 

[DSmaC]

I have all but one key, company went out of business and the office manager tossed out the disks and info thinking we didn't use the program anymore.
When I use the Migration Assistant will I be able from loading duplicates?
In all reality there are only 5 extra programs I want to add on from my personal one.
I'm just being kind of lazy as I would rather just set it up to transfer the whole lot instead of loading everything up again.
Thanks

 

[r0k]

I have all but one key, company went out of business and the office manager tossed out the disks and info thinking we didn't use the program anymore.
When I use the Migration Assistant will I be able from loading duplicates?
In all reality there are only 5 extra programs I want to add on from my personal one.
I'm just being kind of lazy as I would rather just set it up to transfer the whole lot instead of loading everything up again.
Thanks

There's nothing lazy about not choosing to spend hours of your time re-loading programs. That's the reason nothing but Macs are allowed in our house. Unfortunately, even if you use Migration Assistant, some programs will come up and ask you for registration on your new Mac. There is no real way to tell whether this will happen or not. I suggest you use Migration assistant to migrate from the machine that has the lost disk situation and see if the software works on your new Mac. If not, I guess you are stuck keeping that old Mac around for a while. No wait. You can pull the disk out and pop it in an SATA to USB adapter. You can (maybe) then boot from that disk from your new Mac when you really really need to run that orphaned software. I've had pretty good luck moving disks from one Mac to another. It seems to work going from older to newer. This is how I test Mavericks developer previews. I test them by booting from the Macintosh HD taken out of an old Macbook I haven't used in years.

Hope this helps...

 

[Weaselboy]

I have all but one key, company went out of business and the office manager tossed out the disks and info thinking we didn't use the program anymore.
When I use the Migration Assistant will I be able from loading duplicates?
In all reality there are only 5 extra programs I want to add on from my personal one.
I'm just being kind of lazy as I would rather just set it up to transfer the whole lot instead of loading everything up again.
Thanks

I don't think Migration Assistant (MA) is going to work like this with two machines into one. MA is really so when you get a new machine you can make the new machine just like the old with your account(s) and data. So after doing that with MA once, then running MA again only now with a second machine I think you are going to have a bad time. I know for certain if the user account names are the same it will be all jacked up.

I would pick the machine that is most like what you want in the end as far as apps/data and use MA with that machine, then afterward manually move or reinstall whatever you need to from the second old machine.

Like others mentioned, there really is no good way around the serial numbers issue on a new machine. Many apps look at the UUID of either the machine itself (logic board) or the UUID of the drive, and if the app detects that has changed it puts the brakes on the app. MS Office and Adobe apps in particular are known for this.

 

[DSmaC]

HR lady came down and set the new Mac up with two partitions and loaded everything to it.
When it came time for any key's to be reentered it only asked for the Windows items that we have everything for so all is said and done.
She just looked at us and said "you boy's just love to complicate things don't you?"