Is Windows Easy Transfer in Windows 7 a bit difficult?

In my capacity as man with finger in more than one editorial pie (or freelance journalist I suppose), I have been getting some feedback from Windows 7 users that the data movement wizard Windows Easy Transfer is, when using Windows 7, actually sometimes a little difficult.

This tool, which I understand has been around since Vista if not before, is said to allow the user to transfer personal files, e-mail, data, files, media and settings from an old computer to a new one.

My first question is that given the massively low price of a Terabyte in a box, shouldn’t most users be backing up externally now anyway? Ah but that’s not the point I find out, this software is designed to work with a hard disk and act as a sort of management application to take the hassle of transfer away from the user.

So what’s the problem? Well, in practice I am told that it’s not as simple as it should be and a fair bit of self-navigation is necessary in order to locate and appropriately direct the required files along their way.

Microsoft is ebullient about it’s use of terms like “novice” and “a couple of clicks” for this wizard, “Novice computer users looking to replace a Windows XP-based computer with a Windows Vista-based computer can use an Easy Transfer Cable and in a couple of clicks transfer all of their personal data.”

But this is a multicultural society and we are talking about moving one set of data from an XP machine to a Vista machine, or Vista to Windows 7 – so what if all the settings on PC#1 were in French and everything on new PC#2 was in Italian, or Spanish or German? Can Windows Easy Transfer cope? It appears that the answer may be ‘not always’ and that difficulties can occur.

One more niggle, if a user does use an external hard drive to support this process and the transfer is not successful, some users have reported problems from this point due to loss of control already being surrendered to the wizard.

With Windows 7 lighting up the world, could this be an issue in some areas? For myself, I was ingloriously phished this weekend and spent most of Monday resetting everything including the kitchen kettle. So I have back ups and transfers at the front of my mind.

Has Microsoft provisioned correctly for a the use of a highly automated tool that can be thrown a curve ball relatively easily if it’s something as simple as language settings? Are users thinking more actively about backups and transfers now that much gathering of the clans and changing of the OSs is afoot? Should we all think about the way we file our data more intelligently so we don’t have to rely on wizards in the first place?