WinXP migration wizard or do it manually- anyone BTDT?

[cleanerPA]

I know it's not called the "migration wizard," but I'm not posting from the XP machine and I can't remember exactly what it's called.

Anyway, the old machine is running Win98SE and the new one is running XP Pro. The "migration wizard" that allows one to transfer settings to the new computer looks promising, but before I try and use it, I wanted to see if anyone else has already done this.

It asks for a direct cable connection, so I assume connecting both network cards w/ a proper CAT5 cable would be enough to make it happy? I'll have to borrow a KVM switch to be able to run both PCs, but that's not a problem.

I don't have any atypical programs that need to have their settings carried over, just stuff like my entire Outlook email file, contact list and personal folders, cookies and favorites in IE 6.0. Would the XP utility be able to successfully transfer those settings? They should, they're all MS programs, right?

What I want to avoid is transferring any registry orphans or stuff like that.

If there is a manual way to do this that works better, I'd do that- I can just burn the files to a CD and manually transfer them, right? I'm using the same version of Office on both PCs as well as the same version of IE.

Thanks for your help!

 

[ShaggyDogg]

I migrated my settings from one hard drive to another on the same computer. One OS was ME and the new obviously XP. It worked flawlessly. It transferred everything I wanted and nothing I didn't. All outlook express/IE6 settings were transferred as well as my folder preferences such as views, single click open, open all files in one window etc. I would see no reason why it wouldn't work just as well between two computers using the proper setup.

 

[cleanerPA]

Shaggy-
Thanks. How did you do that from one drive to another? I thought that you'd have a problem having two boot drives in one PC, no?

That's good to hear that it works, I'll give it a try. One good thing about having a new PC w/ nothing on it- easy to reformat and reinstall everything if I have to.

 

[NogginBoink]

The User State Migration Tool (USMT) allows you to save your user profiles to a network share and then download them once you've installed XP.

I've had success with it on a very small scale.

 

[ShaggyDogg]

I am running a dual boot system (Xp has the boot loader program built in) I just booted to Xp, made a floppy with the migration tool info from inside the migration wizard, then booted into windows ME, put in the floppy and followed the instructions. It took two floppies I believe to transfer my settings but it was a snap.

 

[cleanerPA]

What about stuff like my Outlook.pst file and personal folders and contacts in Outlook?

There's no way that's fitting onto one or two floppies.

If I still have to do that manually, along w/ copying my cookies and favorites, that's a PITA. :frown:

 

[NogginBoink]

Cleaner:

The tool is the User State Migration Tool.

There's a help facility in the OS. There's a KB out there with more info.

RTFM.

<------ trying to find </bad mood> tag.

 

[cleanerPA]

Noggin-
Shaggy's comment about fitting the info on two floppies is why I asked whether info such as the outlook.pst
file would be transferred.

Telling me just RTFM isn't very helpful- if you had told me to check the Knowledge Base, that's one thing,
but "RTFM" is out of line. If you want to be a jerk about it, take it off-line. Otherwise, stay out
of it if you can't say anything productive. It's really easy to hide behind a screen and be jerk to others
when you don't have to say it to their face, isn't it?

 

[Zlash]

Can't ya just burn your favorites and cookies and copy em over into the right folder. And export your outlook stuff and burn it then import it on the new one?