Okay, sorry to spoil this arena of great intellectual debate with a simple computer related question, but here it goes. I got a new computer, and took the hard drive from my old one and am using it as a second slave driver for extra space and to keep all my old stuff. Is there any way to import all my old Internet Explorer “Favorite” web pages to my new explorer?
It took me a whole 5 days to wander back to the Straight dope without the aid of having this page saved, who knows what else I could be missing out on in the meantime.
Find where the bookmark files are kept on the old computer - under WinXP it is DriveLetter - Documents and Settings- username-Favorites(not sure about older versions, but just do a search for “favorites” and find the folder), and then cut and paste the files into the favorites section on the new harddrive.
Netscape Navigator stores bookmarks in a single specially coded file written in HTML unimaginatively entitled “bookmark.htm.” Open this file with a web browser and you can read your own Netscape bookmarks just like a web page.
MSIE uses a different strategy. Owing to Microsoft’s wanting everything to be represented by something universal, your Favourite Links are specially encoded “Internet Shortcut” files. Each Favourite consists of a single file recognized (by default) by MSIE as a Hypertext URL. You click on it, it takes you to a web page - it’s that simple.
Like RandomLetters said, you will likely find them hiding in the “Documents and Settings” folder somewhere on the old drive.