Moving to a new computer?

First, be aware it is almost impossible to move or copy an application from your old computer to a new one. Instead it must be loaded to the new computer from the original source. The second part to this is; it may not be legal to load that software on your new computer! Read the End User Agreement.

Also note that if Microsoft Office (and others) came on your old machine it cannot be installed on the new machine even if you remove if from the old machine.

Data on the other hand can (generally) be moved:

If you have a Zip or other high capacity drive, or a CD Burner, the process is fairly easy via drag and drop. If you do not have one of these high capacity drives, moving the files may be difficult but here are a few ideas:

Perhaps Email the files but if you're on a dialup connection, any file that won't fit a floppy disk is probably too big to email.
You may be able to compress the files so they will fit on a floppy using an application like Winzip. www.winzip.com
Split the files in to small floppy sized pieces using a shareware or freeware program like FileSplitter available at http://www.hhdsoftware.com/filesplitter.html .
If both machine have a NIC (Network Interface Card) you could get a cross-over cable and transfer the files directly.
For more information on networking: Network basics | Network Settings | Sharing Folders | URLs | TroubleShooting
Use the Windows XP File and Settings Transfer Wizard.
Obtain a parallel transfer cable and use Windows Direct Cable Connection. This is an optional application not typically loaded from the Windows CD. To install this option, select Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel and from there, select Windows Set-up. In the list select Communications and click the Details button. More Information see File Transferring with: Windows XP | Windows 95/98
Piggy back the old drive on the new computer and transfer data using the Windows Explorer.

Need a Zipdrive, parallel or serial transfer cable to move your data? We have them available for rent!

Once you figure out how to move your data files, the next challenge is finding them, so for some ideas on where to look, click here.

Transferring Email addresses and messages:

Depending on how it was setup, Outlook likely stored everything in a single "pst" file. Just search the drive for "*.pst" and when located, copy the pst file to your new computer. Next, open Outlook on the new computer and from the file menu select Import > From Another Program or File then select Personal Folder (pst).

Outlook Express on the other hand stores addresses and messages in separate files and depending on the version, the files are in different formats.

Messages:

Search the computer (including hidden folders) for a folder named Identities. Copy this entire folder to the new machine. Then

Open OE (on the new computer) and after setting up your mail account, go to the File menu and select Import. When prompted select Microsoft Outlook Express 6 then select the "Import mail from an OE6 Mail Store" option. Click OK and browse to the Identities folder you just copied and click the Plus sign until you see a folder named Outlook Express. Click on the folder name, OK and follow the prompts to finish the import.

If you do not find Identities you must have been using an older version of OE in which case this should work:

Search the old computer for "*.dbx". These dbx files are the database files in which the messages are stored. Copy all of the dbx files to a temporary folder on the new computer.

Open OE (on the new computer) and after setting up your mail account, go to the File menu and select Import. When prompted select Microsoft Outlook Express 6 then select the "Import mail from an OE6 Mail Store" option. Click OK and browse to the temporary folder where you previously copied the dbx files. Follow the prompts to finish the import.

** OE's import apparently can import version 4.0 messages but skips by version 5. If you were using version 5 you will probably have to update the old computer to version 6 before you can export/import.

Address Book

Search the old computer for *.WAB, copy that to a folder on the new computer. Open OE on the new computer and from the File menu select Import, Address book then Browse to the folder where the old WAB was copied to and follow the prompts to finish.

If you do not find a WAB file: Open OE (old machine) and from the file menu select Export, Addresses then Text file. When prompted, browse to the My Documents folder and give the file a name like addbook.csv. It's the csv extension that is important. Copy this csv file to your new computer's My Documents folder and open OE. From the File menu select Import, Other Address book then select text file. Browse to the My Documents folder and select the addbook.csv file.