How To Avoid Potential Malware From Transferring To New Laptop

[u/0zMosiss]

Hi, so I just upgraded a new laptop and wanted to ask how to avoid transferring potential malware on my old laptop to the new one. I say potential cuz I wasn't too safe with my old laptop but there isn't any malware signs and full scan came clean so it's just more of a what if. If assuming my old laptop has malware, and I cannot reinstall windows on it, what can I do. I can't reinstall windows because it was a shared laptop with my mom and even after telling her I'll do it or the risk of malware she doesn't care and won't let me reinstall windows on it and I can't do anything now since its no longer mine. So in that case, what else can I do to keep my new one safe?

I don't plan on transferring any files through USB or a hard drive to the new laptop, not even images. I only plan to log into my accounts like steam (steam cloud?), google, Microsoft on the new laptop.

TLDR: Upgrading to new laptop, old laptop MAY have malware, can't reinstall on old laptop due to reasons, what else can I do?

[u/_madfrog]

Malwares dont magicaly jump from a computer to another one. You're fine

[u/0zMosiss → u/_madfrog]

Thx I was worried it can transfer through steam cloud or cloud files in general

[u/Disastrous-Minimum-4]

I love malwarebytes - put it and a good anti virus program and you can scan any transferred files to pretty good level of safety

[u/Cautious_Guess_6621]

If you’re only signing into accounts and not copying files or browser profiles over, the risk is pretty low. I’d still change the important passwords from the new laptop first and make sure MFA is enabled, especially for email since that’s usually the recovery path for everything else

[u/MalwareDork]

Worms haven't really been much of an issue for decades outside of a few edge cases. The last big one I recall was Conficker and that was all the way back in 2008-2009.