Microsoft built a way to move your files to a new PC without the cloud. It just deleted it.

For over a year Microsoft tested a way to move your files from an old Windows PC to a new one across your own home network, with nothing going near the cloud. It has now been switched off.

PC-to-PC Migration appeared in Insider builds in July 2025, tucked inside the Windows Backup app: pair two machines on the same Wi-Fi, choose what to bring over, wait. It never reached a finished version of Windows. The Windows Backup changelog now states flatly that PC-to-PC Migration is no longer available, and the feature is gone from Release Preview builds 26100.9539, 26200.9535 and 26300.9539. Microsoft's suggested alternative is Windows Backup, which syncs through OneDrive.

That is not a like-for-like swap. A local transfer is limited by how quick your network is. An upload is limited by that, plus your broadband, plus how much OneDrive space you have. A free Microsoft account gets 5 GB. One phone's worth of photos goes past that, never mind twenty years of them. So if you were waiting for this to land before setting up a new machine, stop waiting.

The old method still works and always has. Plug in an external drive, copy Documents, Pictures, Desktop and whatever else matters, carry the drive across. It is not clever, and nothing can go wrong with it that you cannot watch happening. Tendvane's one-click backup does exactly that in a single step, and the sensible time to run it is the week before a new computer arrives, not the evening you are trying to set it up.