I broke my MB Pro 15" (late 2013) screen a week ago, too drunk at a get together with friends and I tried playing some music off of my e-mail and my computer ended up on the floor face down (allegedly 2-3 times)

I have all my music production software with licences installed on this MB Pro, and fixing the screen is like... $800

So I bought an identical used MB Pro for half that, and I was wondering:

Broken MB Pro (#1) has all my plug-in licenses and keys installed on it, whereas this newly bought MB Pro (#2) is completely clean. If I import the most recent Time Machine backup from MB Pro #1 into MB Pro #2, will all the installations and licenses follow and run off the bat like they do on #1?

Or will I have to download and reinstall on #2 either way, so I might as well start clean with #2 and do clean installs on it? Its more hassle, but at least I won't dirty up this new computer with 15000 screenshots and caches and cookies and e-mails and trash that is cluttering up my old (and now screenless) MB Pro #1

Start clean because how things are stored on time machine depend from developer to developer...this is one of the main reasons I am loyal to logic because its native to Mac and the directories save in Time Machine

______________________________________

Navem nu, cuando sol
Tutu nu, vondo nos nu
Vita em, no continous non
Nos nu ekta nos sepe ta, amen

When the sun shades the ship
We sweat and life is not safe
To swim or to touch not
When we unite we hedge amen

that would follow a full Time Machine import

Buuut its gonna be a puzzle de-authorizing all the plugins that are only allowed to be licensed to my one computer, and reinstalling everything from scratch

Guess it is the better option tho... hmm

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

I am a beacon of class, manner and integrity, few if any terrible decisions made (usually)

but I don't even remember what my followup was supposed to be

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

I've done clean installs. I've done restores. The differences between them are negligible if there is any difference at all, besides you spending time reinstalling every individual app.

You also don't have to restore the whole backup. You can import some stuff (like applications, or just your home folder, etc) after doing a fresh install.

I haven't come across an application that's excluded from time machine backups

And it feels good

I’m the worst at keeping my laptops organized, I suddenly got 3000 screenshots on my desktop which I move to a new folder after a while and then repeat

Random photos and sample folders and all kinds of sh**, this new (but old) Macbook I’m gonna try to keep as neat and tidy as possible

Strictly necessary Pro Tools project, plugins and sample folders. No junk, no memes, no nothing. I’ll save that for my O.G. MB (the top 2/3 of the screen still works)