Manual Migration: Step-by-Step
This section concerns moving manually from one PC to another. If you are moving manually from a PC to a Mac, please visit the "Moving to a Mac" section on this site.

We'll assume that you have a PC running Windows 95 or later with a drive that can burn CDs. Unless you only plan to move a few megabytes of data, we do not recommend using floppies. It simply takes too long.

If you are lucky and have network access, then follow the instructions below and copy/drag your folders to a network drive instead of burning them to a CD. Then copy them from there to your new PC when it is connected to the network, and follow the instructions below for setting up your data on your new PC.

The manual process can be broken into four steps:

1. Find what you want to move (files, email, settings, etc.)
2. Burn it to a CD
3. Copy the data from your CD onto your new PC
4. Setup up your browser, email, address book

Finding what to move
Chances are that 95% of what you want to move to your new PC is located in the My Documents folder, or its subfolders, on your old PC. We'll show you how to move everything else to be transferred such as your email, browser favorites, and address book to your "My Documents" folder.

We'll then "burn" the contents of My Documents onto the CD, copy it from the CD to the new PC's My Documents folder, and setup the data on your new PC.

Don't worry about having to delete files from your old PC in order to prevent them being copied to your new PC. Your CD creation software will let you select and deselect what is to be "burned".

Files and Documents
You may want to move any files and documents that were not saved into your "My Documents" folder (such as your desktop or a different folder) before the "Burn it to a CD" process. It is a "Best Practices" to place all your information in the "My Documents" folder with logical subfolders, i.e., "My Work", "My Downloads".

Email
If you use Web Mail such as Hotmail, or AOL, then life gets simple. When you are on your new PC, access your email as you normally would have done on your old PC, by going to Hotmail or AOL. Most of your email on these type of email clients are held on the server through the service provider like AOL or MSN.

It gets trickier if you use email such as Outlook, Outlook Express, or Eudora, and have stored your email on your PC. We'll take you through an example with Outlook Express, below. In general, follow the instructions in your email program for exporting and importing email.

When you are prompted to save the file, be sure to save it into the My Documents folder, since this is where to put everything that is going to be moved. It will be moved to My Documents in your new PC.

When you are on your new PC, run your email program, choose the import mail option, and then import the file you saved above which will be in the My Documents folder on your new PC.

Email POP3 settings
To setup your POP3 email on your new computer, you will have to enter your ISPs POP3 settings. In Outlook Express, you will find these under Tools, Accounts. Select your mail account and then click on Properties. Under the Server tab, you will find the settings you need. Write these down, and enter the same settings in your email program on your new PC.

Steps to Add and Configure Internet E-mail Account
The following steps are the most common POP3 configurations within Outlook Express:

  1. Start Outlook Express at your new PC.
  2. On the Tools menu, click Accounts.
  3. In the Internet Accounts dialog box, click Add, and then click Mail.
  4. In the Display Name box, type the name that you want others to see when you send a message, and then click Next.
  5. In the E-mail Address box, type the e-mail address for the account that you are using (for example, "marysmith@abcde.com"), and then click Next.
  6. Under E-mail Server Names, click the appropriate incoming e-mail server type (Post Office Protocol version 3 [POP3] is the default type), and then type the names of your incoming and outgoing e-mail servers. Click Next.
  7. Depending on your logon type, either type your POP account name and password in the POP Account Name and Password boxes, or click Log on using Secure Password Authentication (SAP). Click Next.
  8. In the Internet Mail Account Name box; type a name to identify the mail account that you are configuring. This is known as the "friendly" name for the account. Click Next.
  9. Click the connection type that you use to connect to the Internet, and then click Next.

    NOTE: This step does not apply to Outlook Express 5.

    If you click Use my phone line to connect, you are prompted to either create a new Dial-Up Networking connection or use an existing one. If Dial-Up Networking has been configured for your ISP, click Use an existing dial-up connection, click the name for your Dial-Up Networking connection in the list, and then click Next.

    If you click Connect using my local area network (LAN) or I will establish my Internet connection manually, you are not prompted for any additional settings.

  10. Click Finish.

Transfer Address book or Email contacts
As with email, follow your email program's instructions for exporting your address book/contacts.

Email programs handle these quite differently. For example, with Outlook, the Contacts folder can be selected, just like any other email folder, then exported to a .pst file, which is easily imported into Outlook on your new PC.

How to Copy an Outlook Express WAB to Another Computer
In Outlook Express, you can use the following steps to copy the WAB from one computer to another:

  1. Start Outlook Express on the old PC, click on "Export" under the File menu, and then click "Address Book".
  2. Select the "Text File (Comma Separated Values)", and then click "Export".
  3. Type a descriptive name in the "Save Exported File As" box, click Browse, click on "My Documents" folder as your destination drive in the "Save In" box, and then click "Save".
  4. Click "Next", then click the appropriate check boxes to select the fields you want to export in the "Select the fields you wish to export" box, and then click Finish.
  5. After the *.csv file got moved over to the new PC, start Outlook Express, point to "Import" on the "File" menu, and then click "Address Book".
    NOTE: To import a comma-separated file in Outlook Express 5, point to "Import" on the "File" menu, click "Other Address Book", click "Text File (Comma Separated Values)," and then click "Import". Skip to step 8.
  6. Click "Text File (Comma Separated Values)", and then click "Import".
  7. Click "Browse", click the appropriate location "My Documents" folder, click the file name you typed in step 3, click "Open", and then "Next".
  8. Click the appropriate check boxes to select the fields you want to import in the "Map the fields you wish to import" box, and then click "Finish".
  9. If you receive a message "Would you like to replace the existing entry with the import entry?", click "Yes To All" to replace all duplicate entries, and then quit Outlook Express.

How to Import Outlook Contacts into Outlook Express
To export contacts from Outlook 97 or Outlook 98 and import those contacts into Outlook Express as address book entries, perform the steps in the following sections.
Exporting Contacts from Outlook 97 or Outlook 98
  1. In Outlook 97 or Outlook 98, click Import And Export on the File menu.
  2. Click Export To A File, and then click Next.
  3. Click the folder from which you want to export your contacts, and then click Next. By default, contacts are stored in the Contacts folder.
    NOTE: Steps 3 and 4 are reversed in Outlook 98.
  4. Click Comma Separated Values (DOS), and then click Next. A comma separated values (.csv) file is a text file that contains rows of data that are separated by commas.
  5. In the Save Exported File As box, type the name of the file that you want to export, and then click Next.
  6. Click Finish.

By default, the exported .csv file is saved in the Windows or Winnt folder.
Importing Contacts into Outlook Express
  1. Perform one of the following steps, as applicable:
    o In Outlook Express 4.0 and 4.01, point to Import on the File menu, and then click Address Book.
    o In Outlook Express 5, point to Import on the File menu, and then click Other Address Book.
  2. Click Text File (Comma Separated Values), and then click Next.
  3. Locate and click the .csv file that you exported from Outlook 97 or Outlook 98, and then click Next.
  4. Map the text fields in the .csv file to the appropriate address book fields:
    1. Click to select the check box of the text field that you want to map.
    2. In the Change Mapping dialog box, click the appropriate address book field.
    3. Click to select the Import This Field check box, and then click OK.
  5. Click Finish.

How to Import PST Files within Outlook Express
To import messages from an existing Exchange or Outlook client PST, follow these steps.
  1. Open Outlook Express, on the File menu point to Import, and then click Messages.
  2. In the "Select an email client to import from" box, click the appropriate mail client, Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook, and then click Next.
  3. Click Next, and then in the Profile Name box, click the Profile name from which to import the PST (in this case, it's at "My Documents" folder), and then click OK.
  4. In the Select Folders box, choose All Folders, or to import specific folders, choose Selected Folders, and then click the folder that you want to import into Outlook Express. NOTE: If you choose Selected Folders and want to import more than one folder, press and hold the SHIFT key and then click each folder you want to import.
  5. Click Finish.

Browser favorites or bookmarks, and cookies
Your browser may let you export your cookies and favorites/bookmarks. For Internet Explorer, you will find the Export command under the File Menu. It will enable you to export your cookies and favorites files to My Documents by default.

On your new computer, when you run Internet Explorer, choose the Import option under the File menu. Choose the cookies and favorites files you moved over, and they will be imported. Note that these files will overwrite any existing cookie or favorite files. This means that if you had created any favorites on your new computer, then they will be overwritten by the favorites from the old PC.

Burning to the CD
CDs generally hold about 650MB of data, and with luck that should be enough. If not, you'll need to burn as many as required. All your files, folders, and settings to be moved will go on the CD, so the first thing is to use your CD software to format and create a blank CD.

When preparing to "burn" your CD, the CD creation software lets you select and deselect what files or folders will be copied to the CD. Run your CD creation software, and select the My Documents folder from your old PC. Then go through the files and folders in My Documents and deselect anything that you do not want on the CD. When you are finished, burn the CD.

Copying the CD to your new PC
Put the newly created CD into your new PC, and run Windows Explorer (Under Start, Programs, Accessories, or from the Run menu, enter Explorer.exe).

In the Windows Explorer left pane, click on the CD drive letter. Click on the My Documents on your CD, and drag it to the C drive of your new computer.

Because there is a folder called My Documents on your new PC, you will get a warning message, and will be asked if it's ok to copy the files to this folder. If there is a file with the same name (you may have already created it on your new PC), then you will be asked if you want to overwrite it. Click Yes or No as desired.

Setting up email, address book, and your browser

Once you have finished copying the files over, follow the import steps above for Email, Email POP3 settings, address book, and browser favorites/bookmarks and cookies to import the old PC data/settings to the relevant programs.



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