I will be getting a new laptop with Windows 7 Home edition. My current laptop runs XP. What is the most efficient and least painful way to transfer my personal files and programs?

A:

Windows 7 has a transfer assistant, but it moves only files and settings. LapLink has a program, PCmover (http://bit.ly/bETKDz), in versions ranging from $30 to $60, which moves everything. Parallels offers the program Parallels Desktop for Upgrading to Windows 7 (http://bit.ly/9L1Er9), which is either $40 or $50, depending on whether you want an included cable.

Q:

I have an iPhone but am contemplating switching phones. I have a MacBook and all my music is in iTunes. Is there another smartphone that will sync my music with iTunes?

A:

The Palm Pre and Pre Plus can work with certain versions of iTunes, though not necessarily the latest. Apple (AAPL) and Palm have gone back and forth, with Apple disabling Palm syncing as it brings out new versions. If you use an older version of iTunes, it may well work. There are products that will sync iTunes music to a variety of smartphones. One is doubleTwist (doubletwist.com). It runs on PCs and Macs and supports Android, Palm, BlackBerry and other devices. Another product that can sync iTunes music to various non-Apple phones is called The Missing Sync (markspace.com). Note that, as far as I know, even if you get iTunes music onto a non-Apple phone, any copy-protected tracks you own won’t play.

Kara and the Boomtown blog were in New York this week and started the party early with Bob Pittman–well known media and Web exec. Kara wasn’t dancing on the tables, but did admit that Pittman’s new venture, a top-shelf tequila, was plenty tasty. BoomTown went straight from the sauce to the nose candy in a short interview with Ford’s (F) social media guru, Scott Monty. While Monty might have been using cocaine as a metaphor for a new kind of marketing that changes consumption of all other marketing, Weekend Update gets his subtext. As if BoomTown didn’t have enough hardcore “cred,” Kara headed off to fabulous Las Vegas for the annual meeting of the blogs at BlogWorld. Nothing that happens in Vegas this weekend will stay there–not with thousands of bloggers roaming the Strip in search of a new meme to latch on to.

Digital Daily trapped a Snow Leopard early in the week. John reported on Apple’s (APPL) admission that the Snow Leopard version of OS X occasionally overdelivers on its promise to free-up disk space. In certain circumstances, the furry filcher can sneak in and make off with all your user data. If it was data loss you were looking for though, no one beats the good folks at Danger who, up until recently, housed all kinds of personal data associated with the Sidekick line of smart phones. The Microsoft (MSFT) subsidiary permanently lost contact, calendar and other personal data associated with many accounts. Weekend Update thinks that Sidekick users were given fair warning, though; the company name is, after all, Danger. John rounded out the week with something unusual–good economic news from the tech sector: Intel (INTC), Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM) and AMD (AMD) were all feeling a little more flush than their prognosticators had predicted, each beating their admittedly dismal forecasts by at least a little.

MediaMemo followed up on some important stories, beginning the week with Twitter’s spam problem. Peter reported that the Web’s biggest microblogging pipeline updated its tools for trapping the flotsam and jetsam. Twitter is reportedly in talks with several leading search engines that want to feed on all that delicious real-time data. Peter also updated the readers on the tough times over at Condé Nast. This round of cuts was a little closer to the magazine publisher’s crown jewels than last week’s cuts and closings, with the layoff of at least six staffers from Vogue. Peter closed out the week with a cheeky little open letter to the Federal Trade Commission. He asked some important questions regarding the FTC’s recent obsession with bloggers and disclosure. He seems to think that most serious bloggers don’t like to sell their credibility for tiny discounts to obscure events.

Walt and Katie were all over Windows 7 this week, with help on all fronts for those making “the switch.” Before he got to that, though, Walt spent some personal tech time with some supersmart phones. He elevated Motorola’s (MOT) CLIQ and RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry Storm2 to the level of potential iPhone killer and praised their updated features and power as mobile computers rather than simply phones. Mossberg’s Mailbox heralded the beginning of the Windows 7 flood and was chock full of questions about upgrading and replacing some of the functionality that was built into Vista. The Great One also offered thoughts on installing Windows 7 on a virtual machine running in OS X, but couldn’t speak to the boot camp option until Apple releases more info…and the proper drivers.

Katie tested PC Mover from LapLink as an all-in-one option for moving precious data to Windows 7. While she praised the $15 program’s efficiency, she thought it was a little sleazy that it also tried to get her to purchase other programs while it had her data in its clutches. All went well, and the moral of the story is that this one-trick pony upgrade assistant was worth the minimal price tag.

Breaking News: Weekend Update is getting intermittent reports that Kara may have been kidnapped from BlogWorld by a roving band of mommybloggers in white robes, all slowly chanting “mon-eh-tize” as they piled into their Honda minivans. They may or may not have sealed her into a 30 foot-wide, saucer-shaped balloon, which could be floating westward toward the Bay Area.

If we get her back, you can look forward to another fully staffed, fully loaded week at AllThingsD.

There are networked hard drives from several manufacturers that can back up both laptops wirelessly and allow sharing. One I reviewed recently is the My Book World Edition from Western Digital. Another approach would be to use a Web-based synchronization service. My favorite of these is called SugarSync, from a company called Sharpcast.

SugarSync can automatically, and almost instantly, synchronize files in folders you select among multiple computers, while also backing them up to a password-protected Web account. SugarSync starts at $5 a month or $50 a year for 30 gigabytes of files, and goes up in price based on the amount you use. The company offers a free two-gigabyte account and a free trial of larger accounts for 30 days. More information is at sharpcast.com.

I have been a Windows user for may years but have wanted to change to Mac. Yet every article I read says that Quicken, which I depend upon heavily, will not run—at least reliably—on a Mac, even with the Windows-compatible software. Is this true?

The native Quicken version for the Mac is a less capable program than the Windows version, and doesn’t use the same file format, which makes importing Windows Quicken files a tedious and imperfect process for many users. Intuit, the maker of Quicken, is promising a new, much better native Mac version early next year that it claims will solve these problems, but I haven’t tested it, so I can’t verify that pledge.

However, in tests I have run periodically, Quicken for Windows ran just fine on a Mac equipped to run Windows and Windows programs. This was true when I used either Parallels or Fusion, which allow you to run Windows programs on a Mac simultaneously with Mac programs; or when I used Boot Camp, which converts the Mac into a full-fledged Windows machine, with Apple’s operating system turned off.

I plan to get a new computer after Windows 7 is released in October, to replace my old Compaq running Windows XP. Will I have difficulty moving my files to the new one?

You shouldn’t have much difficulty with your personal data files. Microsoft is building in an Easy Transfer program to move personal files to a new Windows 7 PC. But the Microsoft program won’t move over your programs. You will have to reinstall all your programs, which means finding your installation disks or installer files and re-installing all the updates from that have occurred over the years. A company called LapLink is promising to sell software it says will automate the entire process, including moving programs, to spare you this re-installation burden. But it isn’t out yet, and I haven’t tested it with Windows 7.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox and my other columns at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about using the Belkin Easy Transfer cable, moving files from a Mac to a PC and backing up a Mac with Parallels virtual machine software.

Last week, you advised using an Easy Transfer Cable to transfer files from a Windows XP computer to a new Windows Vista computer. But what about those of us still using Windows 98 who want to get a new Vista machine?

The Belkin Easy Transfer cable I discussed only works fully when the old PC is running the latest version of Windows XP, although it will work partially with Windows 2000. But there are other methods for people using older consumer versions of Windows, such as Windows 98 and Windows ME.

You can, of course, use a two-step process, copying your files to recordable CDs or to an external hard disk and then inserting the CDs into the Vista PC, or attaching the hard disk to it and moving the files over. You could also use a USB flash drive in the same manner. Or, if you are skilled at networking, you could move the files over a network.

However, there are also some cable solutions that will work with Windows 98 and Windows ME. For instance, the Tornado, the cable with the built-in manual file-copying software I discussed last week, works with versions of Windows back to the SE edition of Windows 98, though you need to install driver software for that version. More information is at www.thetornado.com.

Another product I reviewed last week, PCMover from LapLink, also works with older versions of Windows, albeit with different cables that LapLink sells, not the Easy Transfer cable. Information is at laplink.com. Another similar product that has worked for me in past tests is IntelliMover by Detto, at detto.com, which also comes with cables.

I am a Macintosh user and plan to buy a new Dell with Windows Vista. How can I move my programs and files from the old Mac to the new Dell?

Well, first of all, you can’t switch your Mac programs to the Dell. They won’t run on Windows. But nearly all of the common files used on a Mac, such as Microsoft Office documents, text files, pictures, songs and Adobe PDF files, will work fine on your Dell.

I don’t know of a simple, integrated cable-and-software solution for such a Mac-to-Windows migration. So you’ll likely have to use recordable CDs, or an external hard disk or USB flash drive. Just make sure to use drives that are formatted for Windows. Macs can read, and write to, such Windows drives, but Windows PCs can’t natively read, or write to, Mac-formatted drives.

I have a Mac running Windows via the Parallels virtual machine software. I am also running an older Windows PC, which I back up to an external disk drive. Can I plug the external drive into the Mac and copy the files into the Parallels environment?

Yes. A virtual Windows computer running on a Mac behaves just like a regular Windows computer, so you can indeed plug in an external hard disk and copy the files over. In addition, as I mentioned last week, the forthcoming new version of Parallels includes a utility called Transporter that will move the entire contents of a Windows PC into a virtual Windows machine running on a Mac. See parallels.com for details.

* * *

Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

• Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Windows XP to Windows Vista: Microsoft has built a decent migration utility into the new Vista version of Windows. It’s called Windows Easy Transfer. It allows you to migrate folders and files, email accounts and messages, settings and favorites.

Windows Easy Transfer can be used to manage a migration over a network, via burned CDs or DVDs, or with external hard disks. But I tested it only with the simplest approach, the one Microsoft recommends: a special cable called an Easy Transfer cable. The best known of these is made by Belkin. It costs $40, and is available in electronics stores and from www.belkin.com/easytransfercable/. It works only if your old computer is running the very latest version of Windows XP, called SP2.