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View Full Version : Moving a program from one computer to another


burnselk
11-03-2008, 11:55 AM
My wife has a "Creative Memories Album Maker" program that she's been working on for the past year. This program is loaded on our old, slow computer and it doesn't move fast enough for her.....or me for that matter.

So, I'd like to move everything (including her two desktop icons) from this program/application over to our newer, faster computer that's running Windows XP Home. The old computer also uses XP Home...the old computers processor is 1.5GHz verses 2.8GHz on the new....and 512MB of SDRAM DIMM memory verses 2GB of DDR2 memory.

So, I'd like everything that's on the old computer to show up on the new computer the very same way it does on the old computer.

I also want the desktop icons to be active and take her into the program/application just as a new install of the program would do.

BTW, we do have the application disk for this software.......I definitely don't want to lose any data in her album program. She has a years work involved on the old computer.

What is the best and easiest way to get EVERYTHING (including the program's desktop icons) over to our new computer?

I copied the relatively small (less than 6GB) program onto my GB flash drive and downloaded it onto the new computer....BUT, the desktop icons are not there to link her to the applications (there are two desktop icons for this program).

How can I get this done for her and surprise her when she comes home? Thanks to all who respond and try to help.

Just a note: both computers are linked via hard wire network.

mjc
11-03-2008, 12:36 PM
The easiest way will probably be to use the install disk and install the program on the new computer, then create the needed folders. Don't worry about putting anything in them at this time. After you have the proper folders created, copy the data from the old machine to a USB device...copy the directories/folders to preserve the data tree/layout. Then when copying them to the new machine, overwrite the blank folders you made before.

Some programs will allow you to just install and then copy the data...they will read the data folders and put everything in its proper place...but don't count on it. Making the 'blank' folders that mirror the existing setup is always going to work.

Also, don't delete anything from the old machine until you are sure it is properly working on the new one.

burnselk
01-07-2009, 12:47 PM
Forgot to tell you I got it done. Took a while but now the wife is happy with her new "fast" machine.