File transfer xp to Windows 7

Can some one point in the right direction to find a good way to transfer files from my old XP computer to my new Windows 7 computer?

How much data? USB thumb drives are cheap in the range up to a couple of gigs. You can get a full 1TB drive for around $200. If you have access to a DVD burner, blank DVD’s are cheap. Or you can borrow/buy a router and network them and transfer them that way.

An ethernet cable will probably do the trick. Modern ethernet ports can identify standard cables and treat them as crossover cables, eliminating the need for a router.

Once the hardware connection is made, Windows 7 has a file transfer utility built in. I can’t recommend it because I’ve never used it.

There is a utility on the Microsoft site that can help - it is designed to fully transfer all files - it worked just fine for my XP to Win 7 transfer.

I’m having trouble trying to figure out what your real question is. Let me ask you this: Suppose you wanted to transfer files from one XP computer to another XP computer. How would you do that? Have you tried doing it with the Windows 7 computer? What sorts of trouble did you run into?

I suspect that your real problem is not about moving files, but about copying your preferences and other settings.

I have transferred a few files before, not problem. Now I want to transfer most of what is on the other computer. I figured there would be some way of hooking them up. I also assumed I would need to obtain software from someplace, but perhaps not.

I forgot a crucial piece of information. I have the XP computer backed up on an external hard drive. The REAL question is can I use this to transfer the files, or is it better to hook the computers together.

I’d just use the backup. Linking up two computers is a minor hassle, but a hassle nonetheless. It might be a little bit faster to use Ethernet rather than USB, but you’ll probably leave it overnight in both instances, anyways, so it’s a wash.

All I ever do is copy over my My Documents folder. The settings are different enough between versions that I don’t see the point in transferring settings. Plus, when I change OSes, I like the clean slate.

So I will just plug in the external drive and follow instructions?

Yes, exactly. I can’t think of any advantages to connecting the PCs to each other. The external hard drive may be faster or slower than the hard drive on the old computer, but it will certainly be simpler.

If time is of the essence, maybe transfer a small-to-medium-size file both ways, and then you’ll be sure.

Windows 7 comes with Easy Transfer software, which you can install on XP. You can transfer your data using either network or external HDD.

If you’ve used the Microsoft Backup program, you may not be able to restore from the XP backup to Windows 7.

What I did was to install EasyTransfer (the program I mentioned earlier), copy the files using that to an external hard drive, and then transfer them back to the Win 7 machine (which in my case was the same machine, just upgraded). All settings, documents, etc transferred over. Not programs, but any folders that contained settings for those programs, so in many cases once I installed the program again the program was running exactly the way it had been previously - for example, all my I-Tunes playlists got transferred over.