Reinstalling software on a new PC usually means hunting down installers, license files and settings. Sometimes the installer doesn't exist anymore, the vendor is gone, or the old PC won't boot. That's what WinAppMigrator is for: it works backward from what's installed and packs the app into one installer you run on the other machine.

WinAppMigrator with an app selected, showing what goes in the installer

What it does

  • Pick an app on this PC, or on a drive pulled out of a dead one. Connect the old disk and choose Connected drive.
  • See what goes in before you build: how big the installer can be, whether it fits, and what leaving a folder out would break.
  • Choose to migrate the license too. Tick License and activation data and its license files, values and stores go along. Anything that looks tied to the old machine is flagged. It never decrypts license data or bypasses activation, so a hardware-locked license may still need reactivating.
  • Runtimes ride along. The Visual C++ and .NET 6–10 runtimes the app needs are downloaded at build time and embedded, so the new PC doesn't need internet for them.
  • One installer, hash-checked. On the new PC it lists every service, task, shortcut, file type and firewall rule it will set up before it changes anything, rolls back if the install fails, and uninstalls from Settings like any other app.

The installer on the new PC, listing what it will set up

How it finds what an app owns

  • Install records first: MSI, Inno Setup and NSIS logs, App Paths. Reading Inno logs by their blocks and length prefixes took Git for Windows from 0 resolved paths to 9,220 files.
  • Then exact names only: folders and registry keys must match the product's whole name or Vendor\Product, never a substring. On one test PC that took VS Code from 175,182 files to about 68,900.
  • Near matches (a folder with a close name, a hidden entry from the same publisher) are offered unticked, each with the reason.

Tested on real apps

Every push moves 7-Zip, PuTTY, Eclipse Mosquitto, windows_exporter and Git LFS from one CI runner to fresh Windows Server 2022, Server 2025 and Windows 11 on Arm runners, then makes Windows use what was restored: an archive made and unpacked, a COM class activated, a file type opened, a shortcut started, and a service answering a real client.

Limits

  • Microsoft Store apps aren't listed.
  • The app's own updater may not know it moved.
  • Desktop Windows 10/11 and a real pulled disk haven't been run on CI yet, so try an installer before you rely on it.
  • Reading a failing drive can finish it off. Image it first.

Get it

Portable and signed, MIT licensed, written in Rust with egui. Windows 10 and 11, x64.

👉 https://github.com/RandyNorthrup/WinAppMigrator

If it saves you a reinstall, a ⭐ on the repo helps other people find it.