I have an old HP laptop with W8.1 x64 which I have to replace. How can I transfer data to my new Asus (W8.1 x64 too) which has a very different hardware layout ? I thought of retrieving the old "file history" on to the new rig but I'm afraid it would copy files that would make it unstable to to the hardware differences. Any better idea ?
Are you asking about transferring Windows and programs to the new computer? Or are you asking about transferring documents, photos, music, etc., to the new computer?
Your profile directory can be copied/moved to the new machine just fine. That has no drivers or anything like that, it usually has data from stuff you installed though (like games/ apps and so on).
That's correct! But the user still have to install quite some apps to get everything working correctly. In the "Users" folder under the [user] is an hidden folder called AppData and on the C Drive is an hidden folder called ProgramData which both holding some important infos, include personal data. Copy those to an secure location on you new machine too, yoiu may will need some of that containing data.