Belkin Easy Transfer Cable for Windows Vista

Other products by Belkin

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6 x 1.2 inches ; 8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000JJPZW0
• Item model number: F5U258
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (132 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,943 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 6, 2007

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

With the Belkin Easy Transfer Cable, upgrading to a new computer has never been easier. It offers a quick way to transfer your files and settings from your old computer to a new one. Just install the software provided on the enclosed CD onto your computer. Then, connect each end of the cable to the USB ports on both computers. The Windows Easy Transfer wizard automatically appears and lets you select items to copy. With just a couple of clicks, you can transfer your photos, music, settings, etc.

With a couple of clicks, your photos, music, settings, and more transfer, without requiring time-consuming CD-burning or a network.

Just connect each end of the 8-foot Cable to the USB ports on both computers. The Windows Easy Transfer Wizard automatically appears and lets you select some—or all—items to copy.

Transfers files in three quick and easy steps: 1. Install - 2. Connect - 3. Transfer Automatically transfers your photos, music, files, email, user accounts, Windows settings—and more Eliminates need to set up a complex network, or spend hours burning CDs to copy data Transfers 30GB of data in just 1 hour... or, just 1 hour to transfer 7,500 songs to your new PC Offers ideal mobile solution for copying files to and from your notebook, and home and work PCs Faster and easier to transfer data than a network, or copying files to a hard drive or burning CDs Belkin includes FREE file-synchronization software. With "One-Click," PCsync software automatically synchronizes files, folders, music, photos, video—and much more—between your PCs.

Product Description

The Belkin Easy Transfer Cable for Windows Vista offers a quick, hassle-free way to transfer your files and settings from your old Windows XP PC to your new Windows Vista PC.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

111 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works as advertised, March 18, 2007

By	Bruce E. Gold (South Plainfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The procedure is to install the included software on your XP PC, run Easy Transfer there, then connect your XP computer with your new Vista PC, and the Vista computer will automatically detect the connection and ask you if you want to run Easy Transfer.

The process is not automatic, and you should pick which items you want to transfer (from the XP computer) rather than let the program choose the automatic settings. For one thing, using the automatic settings, the program will sooner choose to transfer your temporary internet files than it will your Outlook contacts. Also beware, the program will not give you an option to choose where on the Vista computer your files are going, it will put them in the same place that they were located on your XP computer. If you had partitioned your XP computer and stored content on your D drive, the program will try to move the chosen files to your D drive on your Vista computer, even if your Vista computer doesn't have a D drive, which will make the transfer fail. Generally, anything that you want to move from your XP computer must be copied to the C drive before transferring.

The Easy Transfer program will show transfer progress on both computers, though when the process was failing, the progress being shown on the Vista computer lagged behind that of the XP PC, when it fact, files had stopped being transferred because there was no more room on the Vista computer (my Vista computer had a tiny D drive used for system recovery). I wasted time as the transfer looked to have slowed down but in fact had stopped and the Easy Transfer program didn't tell me it had stopped.

I would have given less than 5 stars because of these quirks, but the cable worked so well once I had figured it out, that it still earned the 5 stars. Especially with the included bonus laplink utility program described below.

The cable also comes with a laplink utility that lets you connect two PC's (including Vista PC's) in order to transfer files between them. To use this capability, you need to install the laplink program on both computers being connected (but it only needs to be run from one of them).

Before I acquired this cable, I had a hard time transferring the files I wanted, with my prior attempts using a hard drive enclosure, flash cards, and CD's. (I put my XP computer hard drive into a hard drive enclosure and tried to transfer my files through a USB port, but either the enclosure wasn't supported by Vista, or the old hard drive had a file structure that wasn't recognized by Vista). So using a hard drive enclosure didn't work for me. But this cable saved my bacon.

64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You are better without it, February 22, 2007

By	J. W. Cush (New Jersey) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The software associated with this cable, even downloading the latest version, is nearly useless. The software will terminate on phantom "file in use" errors that will wipe out hours of transfer time. The only alternative is to move data in small increments. It does not transfer program files and supposedly (I haven't been able to get it to work yet) will not keep mailbox files for multiple users separate. If you have large volumes i.e. music folders, pictures you are better off copying to an external drive then moving to the new PC.

50 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A root canal without anesthetic, August 21, 2007

By	J. Preston (San Juan Mountains) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This wasn't as much of a nightmare as I thought it might be . . . it was worse.

In all fairness to Belkin, the fault is not with the cable. The fault is with the advertising moniker of "easy transfer." There is no "easy transfer" available because Microsoft has not developed software that even remotely resembles something "easy" for file transfer.

Before you can use the "easy" transfer cable, you will spend approximately 14 hours "preparing" your two computers for the "easy" transfer. It will include shutting down any conceivable program or subroutine on either computer that might possibly access the CPU during the "transfer" including your screensavers, any RAM resident routines, anything that might access the disks and a list of several pages of exceptions which take four to six hours to adjust in "preparation" of the "easy" transfer.

Once you have made the transfer (only about 10% of your .exe files will actually transfer) you will find that what is "easy" transferred to your new machine will not load as an .exe file. Adobe Acrobat Professional, for instance, and, Microsoft Office have built in copy protections which disable them if transferred to a new machine.

After approximately 23 man hours invested in the "easy" transfer, I ended up having to re-install and re-configure all of the programs on the new machine (after doing a system restore to wipe out the useless "easy transfer.")

"There's a sucker born every minute." P.T. Barnum