OS X Lion: About Windows Migration Assistant

Summary
With OS X Lion, you can migrate all of the information from your old Windows PC to your new Mac. Lion automatically transfers your contacts, calendars, and email accounts and puts them in the appropriate applications.

Products Affected
OS X Lion
Windows Migration brings the following information from your Windows PC (Windows XP SP3 or greater) to your Mac:

Email: IMAP and POP accounts from Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Windows Live email accounts are transferred to Mail. Email metadata such as read, replied, and flagged are transferred from Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail to Mail in OS X.
Contacts: Outlook and Outlook Express contacts, and Windows Contacts from the Contact home directory are transferred to Address Book.
Calendars: Outlook calendars are transferred to iCal
iTunes library, including music, photos, videos and apps and games for iOS devices, except rentals
Home directory folders and content, including Music, Pictures, Desktop, Documents, and Downloads
Browser bookmarks and homepage from Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari are transferred to Safari
User settings including localization, locale, and any customized desktop picture

What you need to do first

First, make sure that both the Windows PC and the Mac are on the same network, such as your home network.
Second, to avoid interrupting the migration process, disable automatic installation of updates in Windows.
Make sure know the name and password of an administrator account. The first account created on the Mac is an administrator account.
Note: This process will create a new user account on your Mac to contain the Windows PC information that is migrated over. It will not merge the information with an existing user account on the Mac.


To migrate information from a PC to your Mac

Download to the Windows PC the Windows Migration Assistant installer from here.

Install Windows Migration Assistant, then open it.

Click "Continue" to proceed.


The Windows Migration Assistant will wait for you to open Migration Assistant or use Mac OS X Setup Assistant.

If the Mac is starting up for the first time and Mac OS X Setup Assistant appears

Select the "From a Windows PC" transfer option.
Select the Source Windows PC then click "Continue" to proceed.
The Mac will display a Passcode that should appear on the Windows PC.
The Windows PC will display the Passcode from the Mac then click "Continue" to proceed.
On the Mac select the information to transfer from the Windows PC then click "Transfer" once it is dark to begin the migration process.


On both the Windows PC and Mac you will see a progress bar, messaging about what is being migrated, and estimated time remaining until the migration process is completed.

Next you will complete the "Mac OS X Setup Assistant" process.

Once completed, you can log into the new user account.

Note: At your first login, you will promoted to enter a new password for the user account. See this article about how to choose a good password.

If you are going to use the Migration Assistant from the Utilities folder on the Mac


On the Mac, open the Migration Assistant located in the Utilities folder. To do this: In Finder, select Go > Utilities or press Shift–Command–U (⇧⌘U), then double-click Migration Assistant.

Select the "From another Mac, PC, Time Machine backup, or other disk" option then click "Continue".

When prompted, enter an administrator name and password.

Select the "From another Mac or PC" migration method then click "Continue" to proceed.

When prompted, click Continue to quit other applications. Other applications can't be open on the Mac during the migration process.

Select the PC, then wait for the PC to show the passcode displayed on the Mac.

On the PC, once you see the passcode displayed on the Mac, click "Continue" to proceed.

The Mac will then begin to inspect your computer and build a list of information to migrate.

Select the information you would like to migrate to the Mac, then click Continue to proceed.

On both the Windows PC and Mac you will see a progress bar, messaging of what is being migrated and estimated time remaining. Once completed, you can log into the user account created.

Note: At your first login, you will promoted to enter a new password for the user account. See this article about how to choose a good password.