Washington - Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on
Windows 7, Vista's successor, and you know what that means.
Sometime in the near future, you'll need to think about moving all
of your data, settings, bookmarks, and other personalisations to a
new operating system.
Even if you're not crazy about moving to Windows 7, the reality of
living with Windows-based computers is that a reinstallation of
everything - from the operating system on up - is sometimes the only
way to fix an inscrutable problem that otherwise might take you days
or even weeks to get to the bottom of.
And let's face it: migrating your current setup - applications and
all - to a new operating system, or even a reinstallation of your
current operating system, is always a slightly traumatic experience.
Will you lose any data in the transition? Will your e-mail still
be there? Will you be able to find all of your files?
There's really only one way to reduce the possibility of trauma in
the transition: have a checklist of files and settings that must be
backed up and then later restored on the new operating system.
Here's a rundown of what to keep in mind.
--- Your operating system
Be sure you have the original installation disk for the operating
system you'll be installing or reinstalling, along with the
installation key that you'll need to provide during setup. Without
these, you won't get far with the migration process. If you're
reinstalling a version of Windows that you've already been using,
remember, too, that Windows may only be validated on one machine. If
you're moving to a new machine, your attempt at validating Windows
will fail, so you will need to call the 24-hour validation centre
after reinstallation. This means you need to be near a telephone, or
have one handy, when it's time to perform the validation.
--- Installation disks or files
Before moving to a new Windows operating system, look through the
Start menu of your current Windows setup and make note of all of the
applications that you want to be able to use on the new installation.
Some installed applications may not have a Start menu entry but
rather show up as small icons in your Windows taskbar's system tray
or notification area.
Once you have identified all of the programs, large and small,
that you want to take with you, gather together the installation
disks or files for those applications, and make sure you have any
required registration numbers, as well. If you have a program that
you know will balk at being installed on new hardware, you may need
to gather together the phone numbers of the company that makes the
program so that you can explain that you're installing the same copy
of your software on a new computer.
To ease the chore of reinstalling all of your applications,
consider taking the time to copy all of the installation CDs or DVDs
to an external hard drive, from which installation can be done more
quickly. The job of copying installation disks is easier - and often
more foolproof - if you use a program such as UltraISO
(http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso), which creates what's called an
ISO image of the entire disk. To install from an ISO image you've
created, you simply install UltraISO on the new operating system and
then use the disk mounting feature of UltraISO to temporarily 'mount'
the images so that they appear to be a CD or DVD drive to your
computer. Mounting is merely a matter of right-clicking the ISO file
and selecting UltraISO...Mount to drive from the resulting pop-up.
--- Drivers
Along with the installation disks and serial numbers for your
applications, you'll also want to assemble any driver disks needed to
get all of the components in your PC or attached to your PC to work
properly with the new operating system. Think about motherboard
files, audio cards, wireless cards, video cards, USB add-in cards,
printers, scanners, cameras, Webcams, iPod or MP3 players, special
pointing devices, or anything else that you might have attached to
your current Windows PC.
As with applications, installing all of these drivers will be
easier and quicker if you copy the required disks or files to an
external drive that you hook up to your computer once your new
operating system is properly installed.
--- E-mail
For most people today, losing years' worth of e-mail would be a
serious setback. Contacts, important notes, reminders, and more are
typically stored as e-mail or in e-mail programs. So you'll want to
be sure your e-mail is backed up and restorable before you abandon
your old operating system and install a new one.
How you migrate your e-mail will depend upon the program in which
it is currently stored. If you rely on some type of Web e-mail - such
as Gmail - then migration isn't even necessary. You'll be able to
access it from any Web browser, period.
But if you have e-mail in Outlook, Outlook Express, or another
application, you'll either need to know how to back up and restore
your e-mail files, or you'll need to enlist the help of a program
specifically design to take that headache away from you. The latter
approach is probably the best one for most. Consider applications
such as Genie Mail Backup (http://www.genie-
soft.com/products/geniemail/default.html) or Outback
(http://ajsystems.com/outbackplus/obpdnload.html), or EZ Backup
Ultimate (http://www.rinjanisoft.com/ezbackupultimate.html).
--- Documents and settings
Outback and EZ Backup will take care of backing up your documents
and browser shortcuts, as well. But if your documents are in
nonstandard places - for instance, if you've created special folders
that are outside of the traditional Documents and Setting folder -
you'll need to tell these programs where to find your documents, or
you'll need to back up those document locations yourself. And don't
forget financial files - which are often kept in the same folder as
the application used to create them, as is the case with Quicken.
--- Browser shortcuts
Many of us have accumulated a long list of favourites or bookmarks
in our Web browsers, so don't forget to back those up to take with
you to your new operating system.
Backing up bookmarks is fairly easy and can usually be done
directly from the browser itself. With Internet Explorer, select
Import and Export from the File menu, and follow the prompts. With
Firefox, open the Bookmarks menu, and select Organize Bookmarks. From
the resulting dialog box, select Import and Backup, and follow the
prompts.
Once you've installed your operating system and browser, open the
browser, and use the same menu options to import the bookmarks that
you exported.
--- Final considerations
If at all possible, don't delete or reformat your current hard
drive in order to install the new operating system. Try to install
the new operating system on a new hard drive. That way, should
anything go awry or should you find yourself missing some critical
file, you can always go back to the original disk and retrieve it.
Hard drives today are inexpensive, and if everything goes well, you
can always use the old hard drive as an external backup unit, or you
can install it inside of your new computer, if you have one, for the
purposes of data storage or backup.
Preparing carefully to move to a new operating system should
result in a smooth and relatively painless migration that takes but a
few hours. The alternative - not preparing at all - will typically
lead to a frustrating exercise that ties you down for days.
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