How to move VST/VSTi DLL to another PC?

[Bladerunner1962]

Hello,
I have to move my musicmaking installation to another PC.
This is the worst thing, cause all my settings in the DAW/the songs and so on....I hope, the work all the years was not for nothing, if I can't move all the "ready to play" stuff.

I have a lot of (sometimes very) old VST/VSTi, where I don't have the old install files.

Question: is it possible to move such VST/VSTi DLL incl. registry and settings to another PC?
If yes, how is the workflow?

Regards

[Reefius]

Theoretically it should be possible, but it will be a ton of work finding all the needed registry keys and user files.
I would recommend to properly install all the plugins you still can find installers for, this way you can be sure they work as intended. All the rest will be trial and error I'm afraid.

If you were still using old 32 bit plugins, now would be the time to switch to 64 bit only. But this also means you will lose some old plugins that don't exist in 64 bit. You could use something like jbridge but this doesn't always work well.

[thecontrolcentre]

A lot of plugins use a machine ID for registration, so you cant transfer them to another pc. I would contact the developers of plugins that used installers and get up to date copies. Any plugins that are simple dll files can be moved without problems.

[DJ Warmonger]

Many plugins need registration and you'll need at least enter the serial again.

The bigger problem is install directory - plugins have their own presets, samples and wavetables, sometimes soundbanks in custom format. If you're not sure where these are installed, it will be troublesome to move them all properly to a different system. Especially when it comes to 3rd-party presets.

My advice: Have one install directory for everything so you can easily grab all your stuff and recreate it on another system.

[Bladerunner1962]

Thanks all for the fast input/ideas.

Yesterday I was after 1 week finally successful, migrating my windows 7 machine to windows 10.
I tried nearlly everything, cause the migration stopped 12 times (of trials) after 1 hour with a error message.
The solution via try & error and Google was on the end:
- delete ALL audio driver software
- delete ALL registry cleaner/windows cleaning tools
- delete ALL 3rd party firewalls and antivirus tools
- have no device/cable plugged to the PC machine

I'm glad, not to install from the scratch again all VST/VSTi and DAWs.

[thecontrolcentre]

I'm glad, not to install from the scratch again all VST/VSTi and DAWs.