Sunday, April 22, 2018

New Computer

I finally broke down and bought a new computer for home.

I was an "early adopter" of Windows Vista.  That's what my old computer ran on.  That was a few operating systems ago.

So I bought a system that runs on Windows 10.  Vista is so old that I can't directly connect the two computers and do an automatic transfer of data, settings, software, etc.  Gotta do it all manually.  Fortunately I have a couple of external hard drives.

Tomorrow I'm going to call my ISP and ask them to help me set up my email account.  Should I use the Mail program that comes with Windows 10, or should I stick with Mozilla Thunderbird?  And if I stick with Thunderbird, how do I move all the Thunderbird "stuff" (saved emails and folders, filters, etc) to the new computer?

I'm sure there are some who will tell me that Macs are easier.  Perhaps, but once I get this computer working the way I want it to, it'll be much more versatile than a Mac--lots more software available, and I do some pretty obscure things sometimes.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I recently did the same Thunderbird migration from Windows XP, it was simple.

1. Make a backup of your old profile/email. In Thunderbird go to Help->Troubleshooting
2. Find Profile Folder and click on Open Folder, File Explorer will open
3. Close Thunderbird
4. In the File Explorer window note the directory name and go up 1 directory to Profiles
5. Copy the noted directory to your transfer/backup hard drive
6. Now on your new Windows 10 machine install Mozilla Thunderbird, do as little setup as possible as it will not be used
7. In new Thunderbird go to Help->Troubleshooting
8. Find Profile Folder and click on Open Folder, File Explorer will open
9. Close Thunderbird
10. In the File Explorer window go up 1 directory to Profiles
11. Copy noted directory from backup/transfer drive into the Profiles directory
12. Go up 1 more directory and open file profiles.ini in a text editor
13. Change the relative directory name in the old Path variable to point to the noted directory which you copied over in step 11 (should look something like: Path=Profiles/wivfti5o.default)
14. Save the file, and close the editor
15. Open Thunderbird, it should now be populated with all your email and settings

Anonymous said...

You may also want to download and install Classic Shell (http://www.classicshell.net/) to make the new panel Start Menu functional again.

Darren said...

I'll try the Thunderbird fix this weekend.

What's wrong with the current Start Menu? I haven't noticed any difficulties (yet).

Ellen K said...

Macs are not easier. If anything they have a tendency to "overhelp" and hide things where I can't find them. As a result find myself with multiple copies of important files because I have no idea where they lurk. Worst case scenario was sending a semester exam to a printer and having it vanish.

I never did find it.