Transferring data with Setup Assistant / Migration Assistant

I took the plunge on a couple of Mac Book Pro's for my honey and I and we are about to set them up. Apple has a Setup Assistant/Migration Assistant that is pretty cool in that it peels all your data from your old apple product and writes it to you new one. I used it on my last conversion/upgrade, but I got to thinking/wondering...is there a downside to using this "automatic" setup funciton. Am I sucking bad junk off the old and automatically hamstringing the new computer with it? If anyone has insight into the pros and cons of using this crutch, please share. I don't want to make a silly mistake just because I am lazy.

Thanks,

Mike Meek

If you want your new machine to look just like the old one, with immediate access to everything on the old machine including all the same users, email folders, different libraries etc then using the setup assistant is definitely a whole lot faster. On the other hand if it is mainly programs you want loaded, I would build your new machine from scratch.

I wanted to change the short name on a user folder, after transferring with the setup assistant. I found out the hard way that it is not a simple thing to do without corrupting files.

I'd echo Loftus's comments. Depends how complex a system you have too. Never change the name of the system level folders; danger-danger.

It's a great utility and I don't think it overwrites system level files, just apps, prefs and docs.

Apple has some great user forums off it's support site where you can probably get more detailed help if you need it too.

Jack