Help w/Vista Folders Transfer

HELP ! I had a new laption running Vista that went kaput. Before returning it for a replacement, I "Copied" the 11 "Personal User Folders" onto my external backup drive thinking all would be fine. I have lots and lots of files in these folders with mp3's movies, photos etc. as these folders are essentially the Vista version of "MyDocuments" which is in XP.

When I got my replacement laptop ( also running Vista ) I assumed I would just copy over all the personal folders onto the new laptop. But for some reason, everytime I have tried it ( 4 times now ) the new laptop freezes and I have had to do a complete "System Restore" to the original factory condition from the emergency partition backup.

Question 1.) Why do I see my user name TWICE.... once under "Desktop" and again under the C: drive under "Users" ?

Which one of these two should I be trying to copy the folders/files into ? One or both ?

In the process of copying the folders, it asks me if I want to merge/copy etc the "ini" files too, which I have answered yes to.

Would this work better if I just tried to copy the actual files out of my old folders into the new folder on the laptop of the same name instead of the entire folder ?

I thought the "ini" files were the preferences and would not be a problem to copy. I don't mind having to reset to preference again if that is what I need to do.

So... I am stuck.... I can't bear the thought of having to do another system restore ( which takes an hour ) to get my files onto the new laptop.

I know you all are muich smarter than I about these things.

Can you help a lost soul... please

Thanks, Tim

 

What you are probably seeing are Junction Points rather than the real physical locations.

Perhaps a mapping of XP versus Vista Data Stores will help explain better.

 

Thanks for the info and links. You may be correct that the same User Name I am seein gunder the "Desktop" is a "Junction Point" and not the real user location info. It may be a mirror of the user folders and files.

Perhaps I should just copy the actual files into each folder category without moving or overwriting any "ini" files. What I don't know, is what information is actually in each "ini" file. Does it contain a "pointer" to an actual program for the type of tile along with other preferences info ?

Tim

 

You should generally be able to copy the entire C:\USERS\username\ folder back, although it may gripe about the registry hives ...

I have done it before.

 

That's what I thought. But I did copy the folder back to BOTH locations.... the User Name in the "Desktop" and the User Name in the actual "Users" directory.

I may try copying/overwriting the folders in ONLY the UserName under the Users Directory and see what happens.

It's just that I am getting tired of doing this darn system restore.

Tim

 

I would restore, once again, then copy only into the C:\USERS\username folder, not into both locations

 

I've got a brand new clean "Restore" on the laptop waiting for my next move.

I'll go ahead and copy over the folders into the C:\USERS\username folder and hold my breath.

Thanks, Tim

 

On a similar note, Vista has a hidden "Documents and Settings" folder which is used for compatibility with older programs by "pointing" the data to the new \User\ folders. For example, when you install a video editing program it may look for \Documents and Settings\[user]\My Videos to store vids by default. Vista's hidden D&S (this folder is unaccessable as it only contains "pointers") redirects it to save it into \User\[user]\Videos instead. The video program is obvious to all of this so everything works as before.

Aka's advice should work for you.

 

Thanks for the input.

I'll give it a go when I get home tonight.

It sounds like You guys have led me in the right direction.

I was concerned about the ini files, but in retrospect, it must have been the fact that I was copying the folder to both "User" accounts and screwed it up somehow.

I'll let you know how I make out.

Tim

 

That is exactly what a Junction Point is; a pointer redirecting to another location.

 

As promised... here is my report.

I moved all of the 11 personal folders INCLUDING any "ini" files from my external drive where I saved them to the new laptop.

All the pictures, music, videos, etc, seemed to show up and run OK.

But, when I rebooted, the darn thing froze once again.

So, I went into the system restore and did a System REPAIR and not a RESTORE.

It could not repair the problem, but the error log reported that I may have connected some sort of new hardware to the laptop which interfered with it booting properly.

I had, in fact, hooked up a mouse and the external hard drive. SO I disconnected them both and rebooted without any problems at all.

I was subsequently able to reconnect both the mouse and external drive and boot without a problem as well.

So.... I have no idea what the heck happened, but it's now working as it should. I guess it's just "one of those things".

Thanks again for your help and suggestions.

Tim

 

Tim, maybe not copying the INI files next time will help. I don't remember if I have ever included them or not since I got a home server doing my backups for a while now. Since they were configured for the old computer the new one probably couldn't digest them, lol.

 

I was torn between copying them over or not.... and decided I would go ahead since they were configured the way we wanted things to appear.

But if I didn't get it to work, moving over ONLY the actual data files and not the "ini" files was the next try.

Thanks for the help.

Tim