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I was wondering what password remembering programs, and software to move programs from one computer to another, people would recommend (would be nice if they were added to the forum policy thread)

Right now I'm using a program called Aha Password Manager. http://ahapassword.com/. Where you can set one password to enter the program and make an entry for each password for web-based things (I have mostly message board ID's and passwords in it.

I used to use it by double clicking a password entry in it and it taking me to the page, where I could then input the user name with Ctrl-1 and then the password Ctrl-2 but I ran into problems with this a lot of weird things start happening. When I click icons on my desktop it selects multiple ones as a click them, even though I'm not control-clicking. I also can not pull up web browser windows and can't type in text fields on web sites. I still use it to store passwords, but I don't have to open firefox and go to the website for me, so I can use those 2 keyboard shortcuts. I also have firefox remember some passwords for me? Is there any danger in this?

Finally, I'm wondering if there's any sort of freeware for moving programs from one computer to another. I bought a program once called PC relocator, who's only option was to move every program from one computer to another, there was another version you could an upgrade to which would allow you to selectively choose programs to move, but you had to have both computers set up and running

I had bought a new external hard drive, and copied my existing hard drive to it before I reinstalled XP on the one I'm using now. I had to copy and paste the Aha password manager program in program files on the external and copy it to my computer's internal hard drive, after I reinstalled XP. I wonder if there's a program that can recreate all the registry entries I had when I had in installed before I reinstalled XP, "move it" to the new system so to speak.

Firefox has an excellent password manager with an optional master password and Opera has a similar system, so unless you're using some bizarre archaic browser you don't need a separate app for online passwords.

As for moving software, the safest option is probably to just reinstall everything and copy over the configuration/user data files. Trying to import registry junk is just going to get messy.

Actually, this takes us to one of my gripes with every modern OS, and that is that there is no easy, safe way to move applications from one installation to another. The reasons for this have to do with the subtleties of system configuration files and the complex dependency trees that modern applications require. I miss the days of DOS, where you could actually move an application from one computer to another, wholesale (although doing so was uncommon largely due to the heft of DOS applications relative to the size of most media, i.e. 3.5" floppies).

The reason for that of course was not due to any brilliant design on the part of Tim Patterson or the Microsoft people, rather, DOS provided very minimal facilities to applications running atop it, to the point where a typical program would essentially do nearly everything by itself, relying on DOS only for a limited set of filesystem operations (and in some cases, DOS applications would actually trap interrupts on their own, and I've heard that DOS actually provided a system call to help applications do that).

Actually, this takes us to one of my gripes with every modern OS, and that is that there is no easy, safe way to move applications from one installation to another.

Some applications allow it - the ones that store configuration data in one folder which is automatically recognised and loaded regardless of which install you're using. I don't think you'll get anything better than that on a modern OS.

Also, DOS apps can still be readily moved between different Windows installs. Whether they'll run well without the use of vdms or another DOS emulator is another matter entirely.

Its annoying, and as far as I can tell, no one is even interested in studying this problem. People take this feature of modern OSes for granted, but I see no reason at all why it has to exist.

MacOS X might allow for easy application and settings transferral - transfer your user profile directory and then move the application bundle.

I suppose that would very much depend on the nature of the applications in question...I'd imagine that DRMed apps such as Adobe CS3 would almost certainly break in that process, and applications written using facilitites outside of the officially sanction Carbon and Cocoa APIs also might well have problems. If I had more than one Crapintosh I'd be tempted to try that out, however.

I mainly want a program to move programs from one installation to another because I'm not sure I have Aha Password manager's zipped package it came in anymore, guess I just have to remember to save those.

Firefox's option to remember your passwords looks good, but I just wondered if there was any danger in it, them getting intercepted and whatnot, I remember on paltalk once they recommended you type in your password each time rather than having the program remember it. And another reason is if those passwords get erased somehow, either by an accident or whatever, you have a place which can tell you the actual username and password, where it's archived, in case you forget, etc.

Bounty wrote:Firefox has an excellent password manager with an optional master password and Opera has a similar system, so unless you're using some bizarre archaic browser you don't need a separate app for online passwords.

As for moving software, the safest option is probably to just reinstall everything and copy over the configuration/user data files. Trying to import registry junk is just going to get messy.

It doesn't have them for non-web applications however.