New Computer

In My Humble Opinion
1

My darling Marcie bought a new computer; a Dell Dimension 3000 with XP Home Edition as a surprise for me. It is due to arrive sometime this week and I would like to know how to move the Outlook contact list and existing email from the old machine to the new one. In fact, I would like to know how to move some existing programs from the old to the new but I want to be selective–I don’t want to just transfer the hard drive. Any suggestions as to methods/software required to do these tasks would be greatly appreciated. Any suggestions as to message boards oriented towards helping computer neophytes would also be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

2
      • You didn’t say what OS the old computer had, but either way–the only way to export Outlook settings and address books is to really just use the “export wizard” tool that is in Outlook for that. It uses a protected database and if you just try to copy the Outlook user account files over, it won’t work. The new install of Outlook will not be able to open the files from the old install.
        …however…
  • If both computers are running WindowsXP, then WinXP has a “Files and Settings Transfer Wizard” you can run (that’s what it’s named, search the Windows help for “files settings transfer”), that zips all your crap into one big file that you put on a CD, and then can transfer into the new computer, where it will put them in the same place–as long as they were in the generally-accepted places. Such as, all your own folders had to be inside the “my documents” folder of your own account. The advantage of using this is that it gets all the stuff for your user account at once.
  • When you run the F & S T Wizard, it will ask if you are wanting to zip up the user account on the current machine up for transfer to another PC, or if you are wanting to import a “files and settings” transfer file already created.
  • The programs generally will not work if they are simply copied over, as most all are dependent upon configuration settings stored in the Registry to work. You will be copying the program files, but you won’t know what registry settings they need. If you use any really-primitive programs like from the DOS age they will probably just copy, but anything newer you should just expect to reinstall on the new PC.
    ~
3

I forgot to mention; the old machine (this one) is using Windows 2K and the new one will be Windows XP Home Edition.