Go through Windows setup wizard on the new computer followed by some initial steps. Make sure you like the computer before you begin with the section below called “data migration and libraries on the old computer” There are much more modern ways for transferring data but this will help individuals understand how to better organize their data and perhaps take on this task themselves.
Initial Program Cleanup
- Remove anything McAfee
- Remove Office 365
- Remove OneDrive
Initial Desktop Customization
Data Migration and Libraries
In the corporate world, most traditional IT environments are preached to store in the server share location or “mapped drives”. However, anything goes when you own your own laptop. Some people use Acronis TrueImage for a snapshot back of your entire hard drive and a BCDR solution for servers. For the rest of us, illustrated below are the typical locations for saving files, emails, pictures, databases, etc.
This is location above is known as Window Libraries. Unless you are organizing your data horribly wrong, this is where 99% of your Windows data is going to be located. The path to the above location is…
c:\users\user_name
Files and Folders Backup Locations
In Windows 10, these are the most used default libraries:
- Documents
- Make sure you have a backup. Most documents, Outlook files, databases, etc are stored here.
- Office Suite data
- Quickbooks data
- Act!
- Zoom videos
- Many programs out there sync your desktop and documents folders. It is recommended to run a program OneDrive or whatever program you used to sync on the new computer. Otherwise, follow our how to guide for possibly compressing your data followed by transferring your data to the new computer.
- Music
- Not that important any more for backup if you don’t use iTunes or an old MP3 location.
- Pictures
- Make sure you have a backup. This tends to be the default scans folder location if you have a printer/scanner. Not to mention pictures.
- Many programs like Dropbox and Google Drive offer to sync your pictures. Be careful on making redundant copies of data. Otherwise, Follow our how to guide for compressing your data followed by transferring your data to the new computer.
- Make sure you have a backup. This tends to be the default scans folder location if you have a printer/scanner. Not to mention pictures.
- Make sure you have a backup. Most documents, Outlook files, databases, etc are stored here.
- Videos
- Make sure you have a backup. It may have videos. It’s not used that much unless you are very structured individual
Additional locations (c:\users\user_name)
- Desktop
- Make sure you have a backup. This is typically the dumping ground of save data
- Many programs out there sync your desktop and documents folders. It is recommended to run a program OneDrive or whatever program you used to sync on the new computer. Otherwise, follow our how to guide for possibly compressing your data followed by transferring your data to the new computer.
- Make sure you have a backup. This is typically the dumping ground of save data
- Dropbox
- Dropbox data is being synced to cloud. Not as important to be backed up but if you get ransomware you will sync ransomware.
- This data will automatically be restored since its in the cloud. No need to copy.
- OneDrive
- Dropbox data is being synced to cloud. Not as important to be backed up but if you get ransomware you will sync ransomware.
- This data will automatically be restored since its in the cloud. No need to copy.
- Synology Drive
- Synology data is bein synced to cloud. Not as important to be backed up but if you get ransomware you will sync ransomware.
- This data will automatically be restored since its in the cloud. No need to copy. Make sure you understand how to restore your data.
- Synology data is bein synced to cloud. Not as important to be backed up but if you get ransomware you will sync ransomware.
- Dropbox data is being synced to cloud. Not as important to be backed up but if you get ransomware you will sync ransomware.
- Dropbox data is being synced to cloud. Not as important to be backed up but if you get ransomware you will sync ransomware.
- Roaming
- Outlook OST
- Sometime lingering Outlook data is in this sub-directory. Be careful about not missing old archived data located here. You may also want to take this time to clean up your Outlook messages and delete unnecessary data.
- Outlook OST
How to move data from an old computer to new laptop Summary
It’s time use your network or hard drive to transfer the data once you completed the steps above. We prefer the network option to transfer data since network support is our jam and sneaker net is so 1982.
