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I'm about to retire my 2006 MP (which is only 32-bit capable) and move to a newer machine. The thought of having to reinstall over 6 years of accumulated apps, libraries, plugins, etc, makes me want to weep like a little girl.

Has anyone had any luck with Migration Assistant? Please tell me I won't have to spend 2 weeks digging up install DVDs and serial numbers in old archived emails! Oh the humanity.

IMO Forget about the migrating assistent etc.
You better do a clean install for everything. The only safe way, really, but it´s totally worth it.
It took me 7 days last year when I moved to my Mac Pro from the PPC G5.

I always keep/copy installers and updaters to a specific "OSX installation folder" so I have everything collected and backed up.
This way you know what you have installed and it´s easy to copy that folder to an external drive and take it from there.

Totally agree. Clean install it all!

While I agree in principal, I had no problems using Time Machine when I upgraded from my G5. Or rather the few problems I did have were those programs that wouldn't work in OS 10.6/7/8.

I have also done extensive testing using Migration Assistant. Either works but I prefer Time Machine for this task.

Your iLok authorizations will stay intact. Internet authorizations will need to be deactivated first. DP will need to be reauthorized and you will need to upgrade to 7.24. (5.13-7.23 will run over OS 10.7 and 10.8 but only DP 7.24 and DP 8 can be authorized on those two OS).

Do not just copy your files over from one machine to the other. You will create a permissions nightmare for DP 7.24. I know how to fix it but it's an avoidable pain.

Thanks everyone for the tips. I've been really bad about keeping all my install files and serial #'s in one place. I realize clean installing is the best way to go, but what a nightmare!

Mike, you mentioned permissions problems. Would repairing permissions w/the Disk Utilty fix it or is it more complex than that?

> Would repairing permissions w/the Disk Utilty fix it or is it more complex than that?<

First, repair permissions early and often.

It's more complex than that. If, after you migrate your files, you open your project in 7.24 and it says your files can't be found - but you see them greyed out, you have the issue but repair permissions won't fix it. I've posted the solution before; I should create a doc so that I can paste it in if someone has it again.

If your projects open fine, you're ok. Migrating your files via Time Machine shouldn't give you the problem. It will not affect projects created on your new machine.