Use FastMove to move files among computers with ease.

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Question: I want to move installed and zipped files around among three computers. Until now I never have really needed to exchange files, but I would like to move some of my programs from my NEC P-60 to my new Aptiva and my ThinkPad laptop. I’m trying to find a cheap convenient method of moving these files, without having to fool around with a lot of software. My NEC runs Windows 3.1. My other machines run Windows 95. Any ideas? –Raymond

Answer: Cheap and convenient? That depends on your definition of cheap. If cheap means free, we have a problem. But for about $20 US you can pick up FastMove ( as of Jan 2002, renamed to CheckIt FastMove).

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I don’t usually rave about software, but this piece of software has got to be the most useful I’ve ever bought and is a must-have, especially now that machines are loaded with multi-gigabyte drives. Typically I gauge the ease of use of a piece of software by how quickly I can get it to work without opening the manual. The manual I got with version 2.0 is uncracked.

I’ve used FastMove three times at home, to move my data from an old 386 to my Pentium 100 and before that to move data from an old XT to the 386. The third time was to help a friend upgrade to a new computer. Call me lucky, but there wasn’t one incident or one missing file.

It’s this easy:

  1. The package comes with a serial or parallel cable and you simply install the software on both machines, connect the cable between the two and click a big friendly arrow.
  2. Then, depending on the amount of data you have, disappear for awhile.
  3. When you come back you’ll have a neat copy of your directories and files on the new computer.

If you’ve got a couple of gigs of data to move, consider doing something time consuming like convincing the kids to clear the ice on the sidewalk. Better yet, sneak out to the software store and kill a couple of hours by hanging out in the Mac section. Every time a salesperson walks buy hold up a Mac box and ask if it runs on a Windows machine. It’s guaranteed fun.

My completely unscientific tests seem to show that FastMove moves data at about three to four megabytes per minute. The marketing people got the name of this product right. It moves data between machines with any one of the following: MS-DOS, Windows 3.x and Windows 95 and takes up about four megs of data per install.