external HDD,new pc what to save

[trem1]

Mrs T has bought me a new pc and an external hard-drive to remove everything we need from our old pc but i'm not sure how/what i should be saving also what not to transfer over.
Ive plugged the HDD in and found it in 'my computer', dragged my documents in and it appears to have them but what programs should i make sure ive got and what should i leave behind.Theres only 50gb on my original pc and its a 500gb HDD, so EVERYTHING will fit BUT, my old pc is running xp and the new one is windows7. Can i just copy everything including the windows program files onto the HDD or will this cause issues.
Thanks everyon

[GeordieBoy]

Just copy the porn.


You can copy everything over without any problems. Programs wont work, they will need to be reinstalled onto your new system.

[FarmerPug]

my old dell had livewire, and solidworks a cad program i got back while doing a level technology, but they would be ultra useful on this computer, is there a way to find the exe file on the old dell, i tried the search facility but no luck, is there any manner to create the exe so i can install it on my new laptop?

[Archangel]

why not install the old drive in new PC ? or is it IDE ? and the new is probaly sata , two different connections/systems .

one of my systems has got one of each in ; using old drive as boot or "C" drive and new one as mainly storage on pc

[FarmerPug]

External HDDs are one way of storing your digital possesions, but its important to know they can go as easilly as any other media storage method, so use a variety of ways to back up your data ie more than 2 copies, keep stuff on DVDs, on USB pens, external Hard drives, and the cloud.

[rwb]

Unfortunately, there is generally no easy way to copy programs from one computer to another because as part of the program's installation process files get peppered all over /Windows and other scary places. Ideally, install from scratch on the new machine.

[steve_earwig]

There are programs for copying the contents of one drive, including programs, onto a new drive so it all works, you could do all this on the new pc's HDD then stick it in the new pc. Personally, a clean install is a better way to go, you get a chance to clean out all the garbage you've accumulated over the years. SOme people even swear by a clean reinstall over so often. Or copy the contents of old pc's HDD into a folder on the new HDD and find stuff when you need it, then delete it when you don't need it any more. You could even leave the old PC as is until you know you don't need it any more.

[Gary406]

all you need to do is set up the new pc with the old HDD plugged in

copy all photos, videos, downloads and so on ove to the new pc

make sure the old pc doesnt have a virus as copying files over from the old hard drive to the new can copy the virus over as well

you dont really need an external hard drive as the old hard drive from the old pc will plug into the new pc

[FarmerPug]

when i got my mac i used usb sticks to transfer all my stuff off the dell, but now i realise the bluetooth the two of them had could have easilly sent files between one another.

[highlander]

Bluetooth isn't very quick. Your best bet would be to plug them both into your broadband router (so both get an IP address) and then transfer the files across using Windows Explorer. It's not terribly difficult, and the reward is transfer speeds of up to 100 Mbit/sec (some newer PCs and hubs may offer up to 1000 Mbit/sec). Bluetooth, however, will only give you transfer speeds of around 0.5 Mbit/sec, and because it's wireless, the transfer error rate is higher, and the transfer speed degrades due to environmental conditions (R/F interference, distance from device to device, metal in the area, etc).

Copying across a LAN will also give your files some error checking - i.e. if packets are dropped across the LAN for some reason (dodgy cable, for example) then the error packet will be re-sent.

[teamster1975]

On your old PC go into "C:\Documents and Settings" and copy the whole profile folder. This should be pretty much everything you need; you cannot copy the programs over as previously mentioned because parts of them go all over the place including registry entries.
Did you use Outlook or Outlook Express for email on the old PC?

[trem1]

Did you use Outlook or Outlook Express for email on the old PC?

yep but it looks like i cant have outlook on win 7 unless you know different

[teamster1975]

The full version of Outlook will work fine from version Outlook 2003 onwards; it's just Outlook Express that won't.
Let me know which you've got and I'll tell you how to get the data back

[highlander]

Outlook Express is horrible. Microsoft dropped it because it became synonymous with the term "E-mail Virus".

Using normal Outlook (part of the Office suite) is more acceptable, and, as an Office product, it is regularly updated and widely supported.

I would suggest using Mozilla Firefox as your web browser, and Mozilla Thunderbird as your e-mail client; the new version is very good. Not entirely sure how you would go about getting old data from Outlook Express into it though (it's easy when you install Thunderbird on to a PC that is already running Outlook Express as the Thunderbird installer will just import all the settings and data for you).

[FarmerPug]

google chrome is perhaps a better internet browser.