Moving to New Computer

[DruidAllanon]

My new rig is up and running and I need to transfer from my old computer (1) data; (2) games; and (3) bookmarks. What is the best way to do it? I only want to move some things so I can't just clone the old hard drive.

My data is all in a data folder. I was thinking of just emailing to myself and opening it with the new computer.

The only game I need to move is Half Life 2. I am deep into it so I don't want to start over. I assume I need to contact Steam and let them know and then email myself the game file. Has anyone migrated computers in the middle of HL2?

I assume I can just email my bookmarks.

Is there an easier way to do this, such as hooking the two computers together with a LAN cable? If so, do I need to do anything special like enabling file sharing?

I have a DSL router for my internet connection. Can I treat the two computers as being on the same LAN through the router?

One issue - I moved my monitor and keyboard to the new computer and thus can't run both at the same time.

Thanks for your help.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Copy your home directory (c:\documents and settings\username) over to the proper place.

LAN would work. Just enable file sharing and go. If they're both using the router they're on the same network.

Or pop the hard drive out of the old machine and put it in the new machine for the transfer.

 

[DruidAllanon]

So I just enable file sharing on both, turn them both on, and go into My Computer on the new machine? I expect it will be obvious, but what will I be looking for? Will it show another machine that I can tap the drives on or will the old machine show up as a bunch of drives on the new one?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Share out the folders you want to access from the new machine (right click, properties, sharing tab or something). Then on the newer machine just go into "my network places."

 

[DruidAllanon]

Ok, thanks. I didn't realize I could share only particular folders. I am behind a firewall (in the router and software) but I feel better only opening up particular folders rather than the whole computer. I think I need a spare monitor and keyboard to make this a bit easier.

 

[footbal07]

how hard is it to transfer bookmarks in firefox from one computer to another? are they just bunched in a directory or something? to answer your question it would be easiest just sharing your main partition on the older comp and going in a copying everything you need over. you could also stick the harddrive in your new computer and just copy and paste.

 

[akugami]

For Firefox bookmarks, go into "C:\Documents and Settings\" then look for the folder that is named for your userid. For instance, if your computer is named "badmofo" then look for the folder with that. Open it up and there should be an "Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\default" folder. So the full location would be "C:\Documents and Settings\badmofo\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\default" with the "badmofo" part being whatever your userid is. Look in that and it should have a file called bookmarks.html or something like that. That's your saved bookmarks. It's a good idea to backup this file to a safe place as well as I've had computer crashes reset Firefox's bookmarks. Firefox was open at the time of course each time it happened. Just copy that file to the same location on your new computer.