Moving my files to a new PC

NOTE - ARTICLE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This is an introduction Data Migration article that might help you move files from one Windows PC to another. Something you might find you need to do when you buy a new PC.

Introduction

What do you mean by "Move"?

In the simplest form - to copy stuff from one PC to another. However you might also need to focus in actually removing files from the old one so that they are no longer accessible there. This can be important when you want to make sure that sensitive data can't fall into the wrong hands.

What do you mean by "My Files"

At its simplest level you might just need to move any documents, photos, videos and anything else that you have created and stored on the PC. However there are increasing layers of complexity here; you might also want to move applications that you have installed on the old PC to the new one. Going further you might also want to move the configuration and settings of those programs. At the most extreme level you might want the complete operating system and all its personalisation and settings to move as well.

How to

The next question is how to move stuff. There are many options, and each have advantages and disadvantages.

Sneakernet

Sneakernet is the informal term for moving stuff from one place to another using physical media like Portable hard disks, USB thumb drives, memory cards. The "network" in this case is the act of walking from one machine to another in your sneakers (aka trainers, shoes etc!).

Generally this is easy to do, and readily available. It can be fairly cheap, and It can also move huge amounts of data quickly and with ease (or in the words of renowned computer scientist Andrew Tanenbaum: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.")

However it does not always scale well as distances increase, or when you don't have easy physical access to one or more of the computers. It also tends to duplicate the copy operations - one copy to the media, then another from it.

Local area network (LAN)

Modern computers are usually connected to networks (wired or wifi), and already have the abilities to "share" information on the network so that it can be accessed by other computers. This can be fairly quick (especially if connected by gigabit ethernet), and can move large amounts of information without needing external storage devices, and multiple copy operations. It is also good when working on migration remotely (say helping someone else migrate files using remote access software)

Direct connection

In some cases you can physically plug one computer directly into another using a data transfer cable, and move files that way. On modern USB3 / Thunderbolt machines, this can be very quick. Note you may need special software to do it this way.

Via the internet

There are lots of options here:

Email

it can be as simple at attaching files you want to move to and email and sending it to yourself!

Cloud storage

There are also a multitude of cloud storage options (Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox etc) that make synchronising collections of files with cloud storage and accessing them in multiple places very easy. These can be very convenient. Speed however can very greatly and will depend on how good your internet connection is. There may also be privacy, security and cost implications with file being possibly open to undesired access, or needing to pay for cloud storage space it you have lots of files to move.

Web services

There are many web services that allow data to be uploaded and "sent" places (e.g. wetransfer.com), again easy to use and convenient. Speed will depend on internet access speed, and there may be limitations on the amount of information you can move (many free services will allow at least a couple of GB to be moved this way)

VPN

A VPN (or Virtual Private Network) can allow two computers to connect to each other as if connected on the same LAN - allowing direct sharing and access of files in the same way they would on a LAN. Can be more complicated to setup, and might not be quick, but it does work at distance and scale, and has fewer security or privacy implications since your files are never stored on someone else's computer.

Physical drive transfer

Often overlooked, but moving a Solid State Drive (SSD) or Hard Disk Drive (HDD) from one computer to another can be a very quick and easy way to move lots of data. With smaller (i.e. 2.5" and M2) drives, these can usually be powered from a USB drive adaptor, and so connected to a computer quickly and easily just be plugging them into a USB socket.

What should I move

The simplest file migration will focus on moving all of your own files; so documents., spreadsheets, pictures videos etc. So let's start with those.

Where do I find them?

Unless you mess with the default file locations (or install MS OneDrive - we will come to that later), most user files will be in the C:\Users folder. Typically there will be a folder in that location for each user who has an account on the PC. So if your account was called Josh, you would expect to find a folder C:\Users\Josh. That is called your "Profile" folder, and it will be created automatically the fist time the account that owns it logs in. In this folder you will find more folders like Downloads, Documents, & Desktop. These folders are the default locations where downloads are save, any documents you save, and any files or folders that you placed on your desktop are stored.

Copying the Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, OneDrive, Pictures and Videos folders will copy most of your data.

Hidden stuff

There is another folder in your profile that can be useful as well, and this is called "AppData". However by default it is hidden. AppData stores data specific to individual applications and the are times were you can copy parts of this to help migrate data for an application. You can move into this folder either by unhiding it, or just clicking in the address bar of the window, and typing \AppData on the end of the file path.

In the AppData folder you will typically see three folders; Local, LocalLow, and Roaming. Most of the interesting stuff will be in the Roaming folder. For example the email application Thunderbird will have a folder here. If you copy that entire folder to the same place on your new machine before you run Thunderbird for the first time, it will migrate everything in one go. All you mail accounts, saved passwords, local folders message stores and even any message filters or searches you may have saved.