Moving apps and data between drives




Recently I changed computers and went through the exercise of transferring all my data and applications. While this went quite smoothly, I went through considerable trauma in getting my applications to work the same way as on the old machine. I wanted to use the various address books, configuration files, toolbars, macros etc that I had spent many hours developing and customising. Even though I keep all my data in a directory called DATA, it required much trial and error to ensure all the appropriate files were copied over. In some cases, I had to create new files on the new computer and then copy over the corresponding ones from the old. This exercise would have been much simpler if the software developers had anticipated this and included a section in the documentation covering such a case -- identifying the appropriate files that need to be copied, and any special procedures that need to be followed.
- Tom Farrell


This problem will only get worse as more programs make use of plug-ins or extensions that add functionality. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to copy the entire hard drive from your old computer to the new, then change all the hardware settings to those of the new machine. With Windows OEM Release 2, this is not so easy because you can't buy it as an upgrade. Which means you will be stuck with the version of Windows 95 you had on your old machine. A bit of a problem if you want to take advantage of FAT32 which only comes with the OEM version of Windows 95.
Luckily there are software packages such as Quarterdeck's CleanSweep (Conexus: (02) 9975 2799) that are designed to ease the pain. With an application knowledge base that can be updated via the Internet, CleanSweep will automatically find and move all the files associated with a particular software package.


Category: Win95
Issue: Apr 1997
Pages: 160-161

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