Fun tip, holding Shift, while dragging to a new drive also switches to Move. When Move is the default, holding CTRL switches to Copy. I transfer files quite regularly and this is faster for me.
I am a bit paranoid that I will move when I need to copy and vice versa and I never trust what windows/programs is considering default for drag and drop (move copy or make a shortcut) :D I always use right click
May have missed it mentioned but the hidden AppData folder in the User folder can contain important files, for example some games store their saves and/or settings there. Set file explorer to show hidden files to find it or search "%appdata%".
It still pisses me off that developers haven't settled on one standard for save data location, they go hiding your data in the most obscure directory and wonder why people have problems with their software.
It’s really easy to transfer. Just copy the c:\users\profile you are using and copy that whole folder and paste it to the new pc. Everything from docs to desktop will transfer. It even goes to the original destination. It will copy the local app data and roaming app data.
Quick note 1) The shortcuts that were leftover after moving the files from the Desktop folder stayed because they were in the 'All Users' folder (a.k.a. C:\Users\Public) Many programs put their shortcut into this folder so they can appear across all user profiles on the PC. Like Paul said, they're usually disposable, but it's worth looking before you delete them.
Paul, I(and many of your subscribers and fans) love your content. Please keep making more! I know the last couple years of the state of the computer component industry have made things more challenging for tech tubers, but we are here to support you through views and merchandise purchases.
My Mom got a new computer for her 92nd Birthday last week. She said she used the "onedrive thingy device" to move all of her stuffs. Then on the new computer she is installing the programs when she realizes she needs them. The first thing she get installed was roboform as her memory isn't what it used to be. I was really proud of her.
I am a bit younger than your Mom, 65, and just love the fact she is 92 and still keeping up. I have been trying to decide if I even need a new computer and based on your story I have decided I do absolutely. Your Mom sounds like a fun lady I can understand your pride
The is a very good tutorial and I have recommended it to a friend who lives a couple of hundred miles away, who has bought a windows 10 Laptop. The only issue I have with with this tutorial, is that it is almost impossible to read any of the file or folder names, as you move though explaining the process. Next time you do something similar, I would recommend using the Windows scaling feature to make text and screen objects larger. This will make your tutorials much easier to view and comprehend.
Man I literally just finished building a new PC for myself today and I've not been looking forward to having to move everything over... excellent timing on this vid sir!
Why not use the Macrium Reflect software application to clone the contents of the drives in the old computer onto the drives that will be in the new computer? Of course, new software license keys will need to added, especially for Windows and MSFT Office and such, but that too is easy. Cloning drive contents with Macrium Reflect is a much more efficient approach to this task, one I've done many, many times, than copying files by hand.
@@holdenman8850 Are you "serious"? A clone is an "exact" sector clone. Unless a "old" computer is absurdly old, a clone is a far better way to avoid problems than the gazillions of pitfalls in trying to copy individual files and folders by hand, possibly creating disasters like skipping essential files / folders on an historical disc. Even for a system drive, a simple trip to the Device Manager is the way to clean up, verify correctness of, and updated it device software. this is the way to avoid problems, the infinite potential problems than can result from hand copying files / folders, especially by using the File Explorer GUI. The video above, just was not very good advice at all, imo.
My best advice is to plug all the old PCs drives into the new PC temporarily, then boot off that main drive. You can use a program like Acronis backup or similar that will allow you to copy an entire drive (even a boot drive) in their entirety. Your only snag might be if your board has only 1 m.2 and you’re upgrading, but that’s uncommon. You could always copy old m.2 to sata drive, the. Sata drive to new m.2. Upgrading my PCs m.2 from PCIe 3 to PCIe 4 took me only about 5 mins in setup, and whatever the transfer time was. Take the old drive out, boot off the new, good to go!
@@catlee8064 Umm. Not so much. back up everything apart from OS on USB. Easy to get even a 240Gb USB for under $20. Hell I turned one into an ear ring as a fashion statement. But do a clean install and install clean new drivers for MB Video drivers updated everything drivers, basically new driver for every single new piece of hardware in your system. And the software to best interface with that system. Without more info that's your best bet. I mean you haven't even said if going from Intel to AMD. But even Intel to Intel a fresh new install is ALWAYS your best bet.
I kinda did that when I got a new 2tb ssd instead of my old hdd. Only I never got around to actually plugging out the old one, so now I have to figure out how to save all my possibly dublicated data.... Sigh. I have found the tools, just not the motivation
One nice thing about having a Microsoft 365 subscription is that all your files are backed up to One Drive. You can log in on the new PC and all your personal files are already there. You can choose to either download them all or just stream them in as needed. I also find it nice because I can be working on some Project on my desktop and pick up right where I left off on my laptop.
We’ve all sinned man. We’ve lied, stolen, used God’s name in vain, and more. We now need to repent and trust that Jesus Christ died for our sins on the cross. This is very urgent tomorrow isn’t promised. Our works can’t save us but Jesus can!
Ninite is a useful utility for downloading a number of programs easily, I think Linus recommended it When I first built my PC about 4 years ago now, I had only a 128 GB boot SSD and a 1 TB HDD so I mapped my docs, music, videos, and Steam games onto D: instead of C: and it definitely came in handy when I had to RMA my SSD. Then when I had to reformat my boot drive again for whatever reason I had everything backed up already. Steam games especially saved me plenty of time not having to download everything again.
PCMover is an amazing utility to transfer from old to new, either via network cable or a mounted disk image. I needed a 64 bit version because of the sheer number of files on my old machine which broke their 32 bit version and their level 3 tech support/developer supplied a then beta and got it working. Highly recommended!
most important tip is not your documents folder or the %appdata%, is this: You will 100% forget something :) Keep your old pc somewhere for at least a couple of weeks before deciding it would be a nice experience to install arch on it - preferably somewhere connected to your network with remote desktop enabled - so that when you need that cv you had created using that old template and you need now you can turn on your old pc and get it :)
One thing I like to do upon setup is pointing the documents, music, downloads, desktop, etc folders to a location on a separate drive. That way, in case of re-installing windows, you don't lose any of the things stored there.
On paper that works fine but you should have a proper backup elsewhere. Many programs look to the default folder directory, and not the "new" locations.
And this is why everyone should always have two drives and/or a NAS; makes it super easy to maintain the files you actually care about so I can just reformat my OS drive whenever I want with minimal down time
Instead of a physical media, if you have the cables, can also just plug both into the network and transfer files PC to PC. That's what I did since I lacked anything big enough to move files.
You forgot about winget! Really fast way to see what you've got installed, and it will even pull what it can from the internet automatically if you import the file on the new machine. winget export -o export.txt By default it saves to C:\Users\, but you can change the path.
Another thing to consider when using "Copy" or "Move" is that copy with change the files creation date as where move will retain the files original creation date attributes.
YES! Not addressing this issue is huge, a "move" can be dangerous if something goes wrong during the transfer so people will often use "copy" but then they are surprised when they organize or search by creation or modified dates and realize they are not all the same and they lost all that invaluable information!!!
Also, 440 comments, and you are the only one who mentioned "attributes." But that is the precise reason people will use windows robocopy or some type of mirroring software. Not to mention the long file names issue or the need to verify huge writes. Copying large amounts of data from old to new computers is more complex than presented here and presents many pitfalls for the unaware.
@@danzfamily I don't usually comment on channels I follow, but I felt this was worth mentioning. I have had several clients realize this mistake after the fact.
I'm kind a fan of just hooking up my old hard drive as a storage drive and moving things over from there... idk how it could be any simpler, plus you get an extra storage drive... or 3. always better to have too much data than to lose data!
Were you watching me? These are the exact steps I used in late December. After purchasing all needed components and driving to my sister's, I had her new computer built and Windows installed in a few hours. We then went through the steps you outlined here to get her data from her old PC to the new, using an external drive. Easy, fast and complete. Great minds.....
I did a data/email audit about once a year for a couple years, it only took 2 passes to cut the bulk of redundant files and folders, organize, and set up a folder structure I am content with. Now I just do a bit of housekeeping every 6 months or so for newly stored data. I have a WD Black 4TBx2 HDD RAID 1 array that is just about maxed with a neatly sorted collection of everything, a Samsung 1TB SSD for larger downloads and game storage overflow, a Samsung 512GB NVME M.2 SSD for the OS and primary games, a 2TB external backup for easy transfers and core keepsake storage, and assorted USB's/SD cards along the same lines for off-site backups. Over 7 years strong on this current configuration, just turning 8TB into the RAID 1 when I made the upgrade from i7-5930K/X99 to 5900X/X570, and I couldn't be happier. I pretty much follow the same protocol as you describe, I love having Firefox sync with a bookmarks folder for every manufacturer driver download page, apps and programs downloads, basically all software and drivers for every single piece of hardware and assorted peripherals. Unfortunately I have a Windows 10 USB from 2016, so updates are a bit of a pain! The real task is optimizing windows, setting overclocks, and downloading/installing games. I have built a pretty sturdy system that is upgraded as needed but generally has been the same format for almost 10 years now. a custom loop with a 5000RPM pump, 200mm glass reservoir running distilled H20, dual 140mmx30 rads in push-pull, 3000RPM Noctua fans that only ever see over 1500RPM when going for overclocking records, 1/2" I.D.-3/4" O.D. tubing, and solid nickel-plated copper waterblocks (Heatkiller/EK). It is absolutely overkill, and I should be ashamed of how much it has cost over the years, but combining my old parts with a new power supply paid for my CPU, and I make money through it's use, a small price to pay for one of the only luxuries I grant myself other than coffee. Having an enjoyable experience is paramount, and should be heavily invested in.
The one thing that really aggravates me is the new start menu because it's not at all customizable and I've always had a particular way how I want to have it look, I've got really every single link to all the programs that I installed on top of Windows plus some links to power user tools which are the built-in programs and then I have those nicely separated into a handful groups and I managed to get all that exactly fitting my screen so it's all there with one click on start and I don't have to scroll down to see stuff under the fold so to speak. I've done this the same way for years and years, in fact my computer is so organized that many people say that it's crazy because of the amount of work I've put into it, for example my music library I have all music sorted by using directories so it's like hard coded and can't be changed by any media player, I've first made a few directories to separate the genres but I've grouped genres together that are alike for example Trance, Dance, Techno in one group and R&B, Rap, Hip-Hop in another group and so on and got five main groups for the genres... Then for the next layer of directories I've got a separate directory for each year and extra directories for compilation albums and for artists... Then for the next layer of directories I've got the full discography of each artist and on chronological order also separated with directories... Yes I have a massive amount of music that I got from a DJ, all original CD's in the original cases with booklets and all still complete and undamaged stored away safely, and I've manually converted all that music into mp3's at the highest quality 320kbps and I even scanned the booklets to have the graphics showing on the mp3 when I play it, you can imagine how much time I've put into converting hundreds and hundreds of Audio CD's into high quality mp3 and why I stored it the way I did with directory trees. Ow and I have a separate 1 Tera Byte hard disk just for the music so when I open up my file explorer and go to the music drive and fold out the directory tree I have everything nicely organized just as I do with my start menu and I don't want to change how I use my computer on a fundamental level which is the case with Windows 11 with that stupid, horrible, idiot start menu that I can't customize anything on... You don't know how much I hate it, I'll tell ya... I hate it so much that I'm postponing the upgrade to Windows 11 as long as possible maybe even till 2025 when they stop the support and I have no other choice to upgrade but I hope that by that time there are more people like me making a fuzz about it and maybe we can customize it soon enough. And if not I'm going to make it my personal project and create some way to either revert to the Windows 10 look for the start menu at least and if that's not possible I'll make some sort of plugin or small software install that will give me the options that I want which shouldn't be a big problem to me because I know way too much about how Windows works since I've been customizing my Windows as long as I can remember. Since Windows Vista that most people hated... I loved it, well from that point on I've loved Windows because it always worked, it became more stable and I never had major crashes and for the most part it looked about the same, everything was located on a logic place, it just worked great the way it was since Windows Vista especially for the start menu and how we could customize it and now with the latest Windows 11 they messed it all up, they don't even have the cool live tiles anymore!?!? If I could I really would like to talk to the people at Microsoft who thought it was a good idea to change the start menu and make it look like what I hate the most of all, it looks like it comes from Apple and that's just wrong, if there's one thing I don't want it's that my desktop computer is going to look like an Apple and even worse it's going to work like an Apple.... 🤮🤮🤮🤮 Sorry for the rant, I couldn't help myself and had to write it down to get some kind of closure.
If both computers are up at the same time, I would just copy data over the network. Transferring with external storage just adds an extra unneeded hop. I wrote a backup script that we use at work to replace peoples computers that gets all the personal data, browser favorites, outlook settings, specific app data directories, etc. In that case the script writes to an external drive. The other thing often smart to do is just take the old drive and install it to the new PC and use it as an extra disk and then you can move anything you want off of it.
I am planning to do a refresh (format and clean install) on my pc and the next step is exactly this. It is nice to see your method and what I had forgotten. And on my backup I am using the 3d objects folder for the models that I 3d printed
Hi Paul, keep up the great content! I'm very happy with my alienware 3821dw monitor....sensible size / resolution compromise (38 inch, 3840x1600) nano ips, 120 hz (or 144 with chroma subsampling) gsync premium, good responsiveness and input lag, nice curve, well put together, overall great picture - just no complaints really other than price so just need to wait for a big dell sale....
Thx for the monitor info, do you happen to know what 42" Dell monitor his wife has? I have an iiyama 43" I really like, but I like to stay informed on which ones are good 😁
if you're moving to a new computer and want everything the exact same, you can use Macrium Reflect to make an image of your windows install, then just restore it on your new computer.
8:00 you for got to talk about the appdata folder for game saves and other app specific config and preferences files for those who don't use steam's lovely autobackup functionality.
Is there a more direct method to transfer files? Like just use a USB cable to connect the two computers and copy directly from old to new, rather than copy old computer to external drive and then copy it all again from external drive to new computer? (more time saving process)
I have found for the most part I don't need an internet connection unless I'm doing Windows updates, for all other programs I download the latest version to a flash drive (or external HDD) and install them from there.
Love your videos Paul. As another alternative, couldn't you just transfer all the file on to a second SSD/M.2 in the current pc and insert that into the new PC? On my last PC, I just pulled out the M.2 that contained my Windows 11 files and key and just dropped it in the new PC! I think I did a clean install at an early stage, but it worked in any case.
OMG. I'm a Mac user. I'm doing a PC migration to a friend. I was hoping Windows in 2023 would have a migration assistant, I can't believe you guys still have to handle this nonsense. Now I know why I switched to Mac. Windows its like having a hobby.
I am very happy with my Acer Predator CG437K 43" 4K monitor. Offers up to 144 Hz overclock. I run it at 120 Hz and it looks awesome. The only other panel I have been eye-balling is an LG 48" C1 OLED TV. I run my living room gamer on a 65" C1 and it is just stunning. The C2 later this year will offer a 42" version if I am remembering correctly.
Ive been following your content for a long time, didn't know I wasn't subscribed, you were kina gone for a bit. one thing for me that sets you apart is you talk to the regular guy who understands computer building but are not the NASA engineer many content providers think we are. I often refer back you for your "how to" vids because I only build a new machine every 3 to 5 years so I forget things. Im in one of those modes now. thx
Just a heads up when installing a new OS. Upon installation windows attaches existing HDDs to your OS. So if you remove those HDDs or swap them out later, it wont boot anymore. I wanted to swap one of my empty SSD to bigger SSD but it didn't boot anymore. So I had to keep all of them instead. Still not fully understanding the whole feature, but feel free to read more about it.
this video was SUPER helpful and well broken down - Thank You May I ask/recommend another >> moving windows from one PC to a newer one - or if for example i'm upgrading parts of my build like moving to an SSD or M.2 drive from mechanical - do i need new windows .... etc
Good tips. If you are not using a password manager but rather have your web browser saving your passwords make sure you export the passwords being stored in the browser. If you are using Google Chrome and have a password on the Windows account then Chrome will encrypt these passwords when the browser is closed. As I work on other people's computers I use a commercial piece of software called Fab's Autobackup to do this backup of the data. The software is not cheap but its a good way of backing up the data when moving it over to a new computer and you do this process fairly frequently. P.S. scanned the comments and reported the darn spam bots to RU-vid for what its worth.
I.most definitely did it wrong then. I just unplugged the ssd from my old one and plugged into my new pc and turned it on. Was wondering why the monitor wasn't detecting it
I understood some of what you discussed. I will need to review the video a few more times. Computer info is so foreign to me that I need a very basic lesson in transferring info.
I may not know if someone had already mentioned, since I did not read the 449 comments. There is a couple more items to collect. I find it useful to copy/move the favorites file since I can't remember the thirty plus sites i go to, second is the browser auto password file. These need to be exported as a csv file and import them into the new computer. Do this for each of the browsers you use. lastly your contacts list (which you may have mentioned when you said personal data.
Great video, thanks. I use OneDrive, so when I get a new computer I just sign in with my Microsoft account and OneDrive sync data and apps install. I can also reset Windows using the recover option without having to backup any data, it all sync back when I login to Windows. Seamless process. I can also use my PC or laptop or phone and I have my documents available on all these devices, all kept in sync by OneDrive. I keep steam on a second ssd for easy transfer to new PC.
or if you are on windows 10/11 simply remove your ssd, pop it in your new machine and boot (finally remove all old drivers in device manager by selecting view -> show hidden devices)
This is problematic when jumping from AMD to Intel (and vice versa) because even if you uninstall platform specific drivers after the SSD swap, Windows Update will turn around and still offer driver updates based on the old machine because the HAL was never reset. You'll need to use the "Reset This PC" option or clean install Windows.
@@bowlinbob6 If the NVME is formatted as GPT and you're using UEFI mode in the BIOS, it'll boot up to Windows on the new board. I was on an i5 4670k and when I moved my Samsung SSD over to the Ryzen rig I built in October, it booted into Windows 10 without issue. I removed everything Intel related, installed AMD chipset drivers, left it idle for a few days. Came back to Windows Update prompting me to install Intel LAN drivers and said, "Yup, I better install clean!" 😂
@@TogonzoMedia Very true, however it is a simple solution for most people. You can in fact edit the registry or run a batch script or even software to clean up the chipset drivers etc, just wanted to keep it simple. I certainly do this more often than I actually transfer but the 3rd solution is of course just to make a system image.
@@bowlinbob6 As of Windows 10 you can it just pops up "getting devices ready" and installs the drivers prior to booting system32.... Technically yes, however if you do switch to a Ryzen you will need to clean up the firmware (chipset drivers). To be fair once you boot from it you can just do a non destructive reset anyway so it's still super simple this way.
One thing I always have on my list is Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Credential Manager and backup Credentials, this will backup all locally saved credentials for network drives, outlook, and other apps.
UI Quirks? like simple options are hidden behind aditional menu's that they don't need to be?. Refresh for instance is behind an additional menu, you can't just click on a window and select refresh. When you copy, move, delete sometimes via the UI nothing happens but then if you refresh the files have moved, copied, or deleted
Others mentioned this but AppData is definitely a place that has a lot of files that you might want to back up. That said it's a much more complex topic that might be better handled elsewhere. At least you mentioned the various game data like for example Steam that'd be a loss for folks depending on the game and how they're backing it up. Often times you want to turn off the Steam online backups as there are some games that have problems with that. :( That said this was a great video for the basics. Thank you Paul.
Also "c:\Users" as mentioned. Again adds a whole lot of complexity to backing things up. Maybe a video about how to make those things less complex? Though that'd be complex as well. :joy:
WinDirStat is also a program that is frequently packed with trojans and bitcoin miners so... get that from the developers website ONLY. This is good general advice for ANY application. Also, if you "don't know what you're doing or where stuff is located", you can just make an image of the old drive and verify it. There are many free disk imaging tools out there, Macrium Reflect, Easeus, Clonezilla, etc. Then just proceed to install everything new. The image is a backup of the entire drive and takes far far less time to create than manually dragging and dropping everything. Also, if you encounter some program that you "forgot" to grab the data for... you can just access the image and pull that data off because and image backs up up the entire disk.
WinDirStat is great, I found programs I use at work that were just leaving loads of garbage data on the disk and that's why drives were getting full. Set up some quick batch files to scan the locations where that junk was getting dumped and delete it if it's more than a few months old, no more bloat. Never would have found it without WinDirStat.
I try to keep personal files on a different drive or a partition that's basically the size of the C:\ SSD minus 100GB for windows. Like say the "Games" drive or partition. Then I just disable the virtual memory and hibernation and use Macrium Reflect Free to backup the whole C:\ drive. If I need something later, it's guaranteed to be in there in a backup file that mounts as a drive as needed.
Windows 7 came with a Migration Wizard (for 7 or 8 to 10) that I find incredibly useful. And it keeps working regardless of the WIndows version. Great video
I just reinstalled windows about 2 weeks ago on an intel 9th gen pc and tomorrow I'm upgrading it to an intel 11th gen, should I reinstall windows or should I just move the drives over? GREAT timing on this vid by the way 👏
@@ralladinhox I should but I snagged a used 11700 non k for $200 and a asus prime z590-a new in box for $120 from someone that got it in a newegg shuffle bundle so for $320 I'll take it
I'm amazed that your way is pretty much how I do data transfers! And I also have several folders with pieces of older backups, dating from 2006 onwards. :-P
Why not use Zinstall or EaseUS or PC Mover Pro? That's the route I'm investigating for when my new PC arrives. It's a major PAIN the move everything over manually.
Just to confirm, cause I’m getting a new build and gifting my mom my current build, would I need format the C: Drive and other drives so that it’s factory ready for her out of the box?
@@zadekeys2194 but in the video, when he did that, it put all the "old" links into one folder marked 'Export'. That sounds like a pita honestly. I need a way to copy the bookmarks as they are currently.
@@derhohlenbar export and importing of bookmarks should create a carbon copy of the structure. Give it a try :). Ps: creating tags as you bookmark is great aswell for future ref.
Solid data discipline helps here. If you keep all of your stuff in a separate artition and exercised use of symbolic links (which is literally braindead-simple in Windows if you use the Link Shelll Extension addon for Explorer) then you can literally just keep all of your files in a single part or device to transfer over for use in you new PC. Having a script on-hand to do all of this linking for you is nice as well, but if it's just a handful of operations you have to do the GUI method isn't bad either. For Windows users, it's mklink while Linux users have GNU coreutils' ln.
Many programs do not support re-downloading them again so what one really needs is a way to actually move programs from one machine to another. I have yet to find a utility that will move programs to another computer. Some utilities purport that they can do this magic but my experience with them has been bad.
This might go unseen but just incase, for people that need it download treesize it allows you too move data in between drives very easy as he does just through one app as apposed to drag n dropping (if you find that to be risky like me) 🤷🏻♂️ hope that helps someone
Question: Is it possible to move my pictures, music and videos from my outdated windows Vista to my windows 10 and will my music and videos still work, and all my pictures open up for me without issues, if yes, how do I do it please and thank you...
