A while back the topic of moving stuff from one windows PC to another
came up, so I have done an introductory article on the basics of doing this:

https://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php/Moving_my_files_to_a_new_PC

As usual suggestions, corrections etc welcome...



--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

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On 08/07/2025 12:36, John Rumm wrote:

A while back the topic of moving stuff from one windows PC to another
came up, so I have done an introductory article on the basics of doing
this:

https://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php/Moving_my_files_to_a_new_PC

As usual suggestions, corrections etc welcome...

Very good indeed. Anyone would think you have some experience of this
sort of thing! I have a couple of points to add:


Microsoft are adding something to the Windows backup tool to make
W10->W11 migration easier: https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/06/16/microsoft-has-a-new-tool-to-get-you-off-windows-10-and-onto-a-windows-11-pc/


For the average home user, with all their files in obvious places, and
using OneDrive, do they need to do more than log into their Microsoft
Windows account on their brand new W11 machine? I think all their files
and settings will be transferred from the cloud.


Neither of those options will transfer non-Microsoft applications,
though. Interestingly (possibly!) I use Office 2003 on my W10 machine,
but I didn't bother to reinstall it as the free online version of office
is perfectly good enough for my needs.

Getting a new PC is an opportunity spring clean and throw out a load of
crap. So, just transferring 'everything' is not necessarily the best
course of action.


By far the best course is not to do any of the things in the wiki, but
instead install everything you need on the new PC from the backups. :D

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On 08/07/2025 14:13, GB wrote:

On 08/07/2025 12:36, John Rumm wrote:

A while back the topic of moving stuff from one windows PC to another
came up, so I have done an introductory article on the basics of doing
this:

https://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php/Moving_my_files_to_a_new_PC

As usual suggestions, corrections etc welcome...

Very good indeed. Anyone would think you have some experience of this
sort of thing!

Rather too much - there is only so much setting up new machines and
migrating files you can do before it gets tedious!

I have a couple of points to add:

Microsoft are adding something to the Windows backup tool to make
W10->W11 migration easier: https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/06/16/microsoft-has-a-new-tool-to- get-you-off-windows-10-and-onto-a-windows-11-pc/

That could be good. One of the things that you can do well on other
platforms has not historically had an equivalent on windows. On Macs you
can usually plug one into the other with a thunderbolt capable USB cable
and migrate stuff at quite a decent rate (well above gig ethernet), and
much of it just works.

For the average home user, with all their files in obvious places, and
using OneDrive, do they need to do more than log into their Microsoft
Windows account on their brand new W11 machine?

If you already sign into a MS account on the old pc, and have onedrive
setup to mirror all data, then yup that will take care of basic files
easily (although perhaps slowly).

I think all their files
and settings will be transferred from the cloud.

Files yes - not sure about settings - I think it depends on the app and
where the settings are stored.

Neither of those options will transfer non-Microsoft applications,
though. Interestingly (possibly!) I use Office 2003 on my W10 machine,
but I didn't bother to reinstall it as the free online version of office
is perfectly good enough for my needs.

2003 is getting on a bit, but at lease still has a proper menu interface
rather than the button bar. Would be a bit risky (and limited) for email
though if using that version of outlook.

You could always run it inside a VM though.

For lots of general office stuff the online office suits are quite decent.

Getting a new PC is an opportunity spring clean and throw out a load of
crap. So, just transferring 'everything' is not necessarily the best
course of action.

True. Although migrating a win 10 install and then "upgrading" does in
effect do a new install - but keeps some of the crap!

By far the best course is not to do any of the things in the wiki, but instead install everything you need on the new PC from the backups. :D

If you have em :-)


--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

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On 08/07/2025 in message <104ivre$3hrv8$1@dont-email.me> John Rumm wrote:

A while back the topic of moving stuff from one windows PC to another came >up, so I have done an introductory article on the basics of doing this:

https://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php/Moving_my_files_to_a_new_PC

As usual suggestions, corrections etc welcome...

Brilliant, couple of thoughts:

Sharing folders

net share Source="C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant:Support,FULL

icacls "C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant Support:(OI)(CI)F /T /C

The "net share" command will share the users folder on the the network.
Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user folder, e.g, C:\Users\John.

Perhaps should be:
Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user e.g. John

Is it worth including the Windows GUI method of right clicking on a drive
or folder, selecting "Properties" then the "Sharing" tab?

Is it worth mentioning adding "Take Ownership" to the File Explorer
context menu?

I think mentioning "Clonezilla" to Windows users may earn you a special
place in hell :-)


--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
If you ever find something you like buy a lifetime supply because they
will stop making it

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On 09/07/2025 13:04, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 08/07/2025 in message <104ivre$3hrv8$1@dont-email.me> John Rumm wrote:

A while back the topic of moving stuff from one windows PC to another
came up, so I have done an introductory article on the basics of doing
this:

https://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php/Moving_my_files_to_a_new_PC

As usual suggestions, corrections etc welcome...

Brilliant, couple of thoughts:

Sharing folders

net share Source="C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant:Support,FULL

icacls "C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant Support:(OI)(CI)F /T /C

The "net share" command will share the users folder on the the network. Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user folder, e.g, C:\Users\John.

Perhaps should be:
Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user e.g. John

Generally that would be true, however if you ever change the name of a
user, the name changes at the login page, but the profile folder name is
not updated. So there can be times where the user name will not match
the name of the folder.

Is it worth including the Windows GUI method of right clicking on a
drive or folder, selecting "Properties" then the "Sharing" tab?

You could do - but I tend to find the command line version is
significantly quicker, especially if you have to mess about in the gui
adding permissions for additional users.

(if you are just working on a personal lan and don't care about exposing
data to other users, you could just grant "Everyone" full read access)

It would be tempting to just enable guest access, but modern versions of
win11 now block access to shares without security on them[1]

Probably ought to do some screen grabs if describing the GUI approach...

Is it worth mentioning adding "Take Ownership" to the File Explorer
context menu?

I have not found the need as yet. All the main user folders are owned by
the user or can be set by an admin account. The only ones that tend to
fail are some of the app specific sub folders in the %AppData% and %LocalAppData% sections of the profile.

I think mentioning "Clonezilla" to Windows users may earn you a special
place in hell :-)

My favoured one is actually an old bootable USB stick With Acronis on
it. Usually fast and reliable, and can copy with changing partition
sizes on the fly as well as translating to GPT from MBR.

[1]
That kept me guessing for a bit, when that change was rolled out with a
windows update. I kept getting an error when attempting to connect to an
open network share and being told that the credentials were wrong with a
note at the bottom in red "You can't access this shared folder because
your organisation's security policies block unauthenticated guest access".

You can override the policy with (powershell):

Set-SmbClientConfiguration -EnableInsecureGuestLogons $true -Force

or CMD:

powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Set-SmbClientConfiguration -EnableInsecureGuestLogons $true -Force"


--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 09/07/2025 in message <104mk8c$dm7c$1@dont-email.me> John Rumm wrote:

Sharing folders

net share Source="C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant:Support,FULL

icacls "C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant Support:(OI)(CI)F /T /C

The "net share" command will share the users folder on the the network. >>Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user folder, e.g, C:\Users\John.

Perhaps should be:
Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user e.g. John

Generally that would be true, however if you ever change the name of a
user, the name changes at the login page, but the profile folder name is
not updated. So there can be times where the user name will not match the >name of the folder.

I was just concerned that people might try and replace "TargetUser" with "C:\Users\John" rather than just "John".

My favoured one is actually an old bootable USB stick With Acronis on it. >Usually fast and reliable, and can copy with changing partition sizes on
the fly as well as translating to GPT from MBR.

And mine, especially since I have discovered that Ventoy will boot into
legacy mode on the right machine :-)


--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
The fact that there's a highway to hell and only a stairway to heaven says
a lot about anticipated traffic numbers.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 10/07/2025 08:30, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 09/07/2025 in message <104mk8c$dm7c$1@dont-email.me> John Rumm wrote:

Sharing folders

net share Source="C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant:Support,FULL

icacls "C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant Support:(OI)(CI)F /T /C

The "net share" command will share the users folder on the the
network. Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user folder, e.g,
C:\Users\John.

Perhaps should be:
Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user e.g. John

Generally that would be true, however if you ever change the name of a
user, the name changes at the login page, but the profile folder name
is not updated. So there can be times where the user name will not
match the name of the folder.

I was just concerned that people might try and replace "TargetUser" with "C:\Users\John" rather than just "John".

Ah, you I see what you mean... ok see if that looks better now.

My favoured one is actually an old bootable USB stick With Acronis on
it. Usually fast and reliable, and can copy with changing partition
sizes on the fly as well as translating to GPT from MBR.

And mine, especially since I have discovered that Ventoy will boot into legacy mode on the right machine :-)

Not played with Ventoy - looks like it could be handy (and mean I can
tote about fewer USB thumb drives!)

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 10/07/2025 16:33, John Rumm wrote:

On 10/07/2025 08:30, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 09/07/2025 in message <104mk8c$dm7c$1@dont-email.me> John Rumm wrote:

Sharing folders

net share Source="C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant:Support,FULL

icacls "C:\Users\TargetUser" /grant Support:(OI)(CI)F /T /C

The "net share" command will share the users folder on the the
network. Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user folder, e.g,
C:\Users\John.

Perhaps should be:
Replace "TargetUser" with the name of the user e.g. John

Generally that would be true, however if you ever change the name of
a user, the name changes at the login page, but the profile folder
name is not updated. So there can be times where the user name will
not match the name of the folder.

I was just concerned that people might try and replace "TargetUser"
with "C:\Users\John" rather than just "John".

Ah, you I see what you mean... ok see if that looks better now.

My favoured one is actually an old bootable USB stick With Acronis on
it. Usually fast and reliable, and can copy with changing partition
sizes on the fly as well as translating to GPT from MBR.

And mine, especially since I have discovered that Ventoy will boot
into legacy mode on the right machine :-)

Not played with Ventoy - looks like it could be handy (and mean I can
tote about fewer USB thumb drives!)

Ventoy.... JFDI!

You will not look back.....

I now have a 1 TB NVME M2 drive in a USB-C enclosure with around 100
ISOs on it...... No need for a CD/DVD or USB stick PER ISO. I've got
exotic ISOs like UBCD, BlissOS, FreeBSD, various flavours of Linux,
Truenas, Xigmanas, Rockstor, OpenMediaVault, ProxMox, windows 11 etc

Not only that when a new ISO comes out I can just simply put it on the
NVME drive to replace the older ISO. (You can if you wish retain the
older ISO for roll back purposes disk space permitting)

Booting a LiveCD ISO or installing an OS is blazingly faster than a USB
stick thats been RUFUSed/UNetBootIned or a CD/DVD.

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On 10/07/2025 in message <104pcta$12c54$3@dont-email.me> SH wrote:

Ventoy.... JFDI!

You will not look back.....

Hi SH :
-)

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
There are 10 types of people in the world, those who do binary and those
who don't.

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On 10/07/2025 23:13, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 10/07/2025 in message <104pcta$12c54$3@dont-email.me> SH wrote:

Ventoy.... JFDI!

You will not look back.....

Hi SH :
-)

Hi JG :-)

P.S. To others following the thread:

its really easy to use, once you have installed Ventoy on a NVME / SSD,
you can just download whatever ISO's you need and simply copy them
across to your ventoy stick. No messing about with UNetBootIn, RUFUS, ISOburner, ISOBuster etc.

And If I recall correctly, it can also handle VHDX, VHD, IMG, WIM and
EFI files. So its also useful for anyone who works with Hypervisors.

You can also set up Persistence if that is a preference to a Fresh clean
Live booted OS.

And as JG has mentioned it supports both UEFI bios and Legacy bios

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