ForensiT Transwiz vs MigrationMerlin

ForensiT Transwiz moves personal data and settings from one Windows computer to another. It packages profile information and settings into a standard ZIP archive for transfer and restoration. The product page lists transfers from Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10, and transfers to Windows XP, 7, and 10. Transwiz can convert Windows 7 profiles to Windows 10 and assign a profile to a user account on any domain, joining a domain automatically when needed. It also lists options for backing up additional folder locations and excluding selected folders or file types, as well as multi-language support. ForensiT continues to offer the Freeware edition; its Professional Edition is no longer available for purchase. The freeware does not support Azure accounts. ForensiT lists downloads for Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 7, and Windows XP. Free users can post questions to the support forum, which the company says its team monitors.

MigrationMerlin is a free Windows tool for moving user state between PCs, aimed at sysadmins and power users. It wraps Microsoft’s User State Migration Tool, including scanstate.exe and loadstate.exe, and provides an arrow-key-driven text interface plus numbered batch wrappers for step-by-step migration. Both source and destination PCs must run Windows 10 or Windows 11, have administrator privileges, and be reachable on the same network with SMB port 445 open. The tool can configure an SMB transfer share on the destination PC, including a firewall rule. IncludeUsers and ExcludeUsers options let users select profiles. ExtraData can include taskbar pins, Wi-Fi profiles, power plans, and items covered by custom migration XML. Migration stores can be encrypted with AES-256, but the README says there is no recovery path if the key is lost. During capture and restore, the tool displays progress, file counts, and throughput. It writes transcript logs to the migration folder’s Logs directory and masks credentials in those logs. The project is MIT-licensed and distributes downloadable ZIP artifacts through rolling GitHub releases.