So last week the IT guys told me I'd be getting a new machine, and I'd need to surrender my old one when they gave me the new one. Well, that doesn't work. Especially when you're in the middle of development of projects. So after cutting through all the red tape, I was able to keep my 'old' box for a few weeks. I'm going to throw down some of my thoughts about transitioning to a new machine, and some things to think about that will help you.

Don't just toss your old machine out. Do the project in parallel. Had I turned in my machine when they simply dropped a new one off at my desk, I would have been "down tools" (an expression my Dad uses) for about two days.  Not to mention if my projects needed something, my new box would not have been setup correctly to respond to emergencies. So my old laptop was set aside, and kept running, it was great to be able to refer to it for settings, and other issues too.

There are two things really to have to do in migrating to a new computer, install your software and transfer your data. Both may seem really simple, but there are a lot of 'gotchas' to worry about. I'll address both items below in the following two sections.

Installing Software.

Think of your new computer as a brand new house. You don't have a pile of junk mail sitting on the table, hell, there's not even furniture in the place. So don't just move everything in right away, wouldn't a nice book case be better than the cinder blocks and 2x4's? Did you really ever use the Tiki bar that someone gave you years ago? The first thing I did was made a list of all the software I had installed on the 'old' box, and started trimming out things I hadn't used in 6 months or more. There are a few ways to accomplish this, I intially found a VBScript I ran to outoput a list of all the installed software, but then found this great free utility: MyUninstaller. It's an exe that run, nothing to install even. It will list every single item that is installed on your computer. You can even export the list to a text file, and bring it into excel, and do your evaluations there! Be realistic, there are of course programs that you have to install, but in reality, less is more. Don't try to get by with no Word processor, or no music software, but is that one time use utility worth installing? MyUninstaller works way faster than the Windows one, and provides a ton more information in an easy to read and use format.

Don't forget about utilities you use that are plain executables that don't have an install/uninstall associated with them. A good way to keep track of these is to create a 'tools' folder and dump all your stuff in there. I have a ruler tool, the MyUninstaller, and some utilities I've written to do stuff I need to do for my job. Just don't forget about these guys, as it could take a while to find them.

Once you're done installing all of your software, update update update. Get on Windows Update and start the service pack installations. You may find that you have to do this several times, or even before all of your software is installed, but now's the time to get it ALL on there.

Moving Data.

Hopefully, if you're organized, your data is all in once place. It's probably in your my documents folder. But there are a lot of other things to remember to grab while you're copying those files to your new environment.

1. Your Desktop - There's probably stuff sitting on your desktop that you'll want to move. If you keep shortcuts there, as long as your new programs are installed to the exact same locations, they should work. Files, and other stuff can be found in the Drive:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop
2. Outlook PST Files - Do a local hard drive search for *.pst and make sure you copy any of the PST files you may want on your new machine. Also setting up email on your new machine is easily facilitated by keeping your old box up, so you can get the settings off of it.
3. Bookmarks/Favorites -Your bookmarks are something that make you productive (hopefully) make sure you go to the Drive:\Documents and Settings\User\Favorites folder and copy these to your new machine in the samme location, now is a good time to go through and clean house on those as well.
4. Misc - Critically think about other things that may be in other places that are important to you. Again, this is why you should run both systems parallel for a few weeks before committing to the new one.

Transition.

Once the new system is setup, and you're 'confident' that you're ready to be on the new system, turn the old one off. Keep the old system handy for a week or two, and if you have the means, backup the old system entirely.