Microsoft Announces Restore Apps for Easier PC Migration

For my entire adult life, from before Windows 95 to Windows 11, Microsoft has never provided an easy way to migrate data and apps from one PC to another. You could use an imaging program, but that's not something most users will do. Apple has made this easy for longer than we can remember, as you just save an image of your Mac to Time Machine, and then the new Mac asks you if you want to transfer everything over. You can connect both Macs to the same network and do it that way, too. The process is simple and fast, and it's never been that way on PC. Microsoft is finally looking to remedy this situation and has announced a new "Restore Apps" feature currently being tested for Windows 11. It has some caveats, but it sounds like it could be helpful for people upgrading their PCs.

The feature is listed as Backup and Restore Apps in Microsoft's newest blog post. It seems to have been made to assist app developers because when you reinstall Windows or buy a new PC with a fresh install, all your apps go bye-bye. In language that speaks to developers, Microsoft says it's designed "To help you retain your customers when they switch devices," and to help with that, "we are enhancing the backup and restore experience for apps."

This new feature should ease the upgrade process for folks, but the hardcore among us will probably still want to just reinstall everything manually. Credit: Microsoft/TechSpot

In a more detailed description of the new feature, it says Microsoft will save a user's app list to the cloud and put them right where they were on the desktop of a new machine. That includes desktop and taskbar icons as well. Microsoft naturally recommends you use a Microsoft account for this, simply because using a local account will preserve less of your data, according to TechSpot. For example, a Microsoft account will preserve up to 20 Bing chats, whereas a local account only saves a handful. In addition to your app list, it'll also give you the option to preserve your folders, data, settings, and credentials for quick restore.

Here's the rub, though: You'll have to back up all this data to Microsoft's OneDrive, which could be a deal breaker for some. You can use any external storage device on the Mac, so it's unclear why that's not an option here. The current backup system in Windows lets you use external storage, too. It's not difficult to see Microsoft's angle here, as it's always trying to get its users to start using its other products like OneDrive, Edge, and Office. Still, forcing users to use OneDrive to migrate their data from their old PC to a new one is not the most user-friendly design, in our humble opinion.

The Restore Apps feature is currently available to Windows Insiders, so it might be rolling out to all users in a few months, assuming testing goes well. This has the potential to be incredibly useful for many people, but hopefully, Microsoft will add more options for backing up your data if/when it does finally get a wide release.