What's new
What's new

OT...Updating Windows 7 to 10 can you import/export user settings?

yardbird

Titanium
Joined
Jul 3, 2013
Location
Indiana
This may be a dumb question to some of you but I don't know and don't want to go through this again if I don't have to.

I've been told very soon my Windows 7 box will be upgraded to Windows 10. The main program I care about (Autocad 2018) I've already exported my users profile settings because it's going to come on as a brand new install.

In the start menu I found a "Windows 10 Migration Readiness" check but I think it just see if the new operating system will run on this box.

Is a person able to save their users profile custom settings of Windows 7 on a external drive or network then import the 7 settings in the updated 10 operating system to have the same environment? If so how do you do this.

I lucked out and was warned, normally come in to complete operating system fresh install and it takes forever to it get back the way I had it. Thank You!

Brent
 
This may be a dumb question to some of you but I don't know and don't want to go through this again if I don't have to.

I've been told very soon my Windows 7 box will be upgraded to Windows 10. The main program I care about (Autocad 2018) I've already exported my users profile settings because it's going to come on as a brand new install.

In the start menu I found a "Windows 10 Migration Readiness" check but I think it just see if the new operating system will run on this box.

Is a person able to save their users profile custom settings of Windows 7 on a external drive or network then import the 7 settings in the updated 10 operating system to have the same environment? If so how do you do this.

I lucked out and was warned, normally come in to complete operating system fresh install and it takes forever to it get back the way I had it. Thank You!

Brent

No idea about that but when Microsoft forced the update on me they did it without permission from Washington. The carnage those bastards caused in my computer was amazing. Nothing worked, printer, microscope, external hard drive, nothing! My kid got it sorted out but what a pita.
 
Microsoft has a tool called "Windows easy transfer" that does exactly this, but they discontinued it with Win10, probably because there are too many differences between 10 and older versions to make the transition smoothly

I'd suggest you simply copy everything you use, like your user documents, pics etc, to external or network drive, write down any network shares you use, VPN settings if there are any and so on and recreate everything in the 10 manually, this also has the benefit of allowing you to learn where things are in the new UI (which I personally find annoying), even better would be to install the 10 on a new hard drive (use this excuse to get an SSD if you don't have one already), so in case you forgot something, just unplug the new drive, plug in the old one, boot and find/copy the thing you missed

There are payed options that supposedly do this, but I wouldn't trust them
 
This may be a dumb question to some of you but I don't know and don't want to go through this again if I don't have to.

I've been told very soon my Windows 7 box will be upgraded to Windows 10. The main program I care about (Autocad 2018) I've already exported my users profile settings because it's going to come on as a brand new install.

In the start menu I found a "Windows 10 Migration Readiness" check but I think it just see if the new operating system will run on this box.

Is a person able to save their users profile custom settings of Windows 7 on a external drive or network then import the 7 settings in the updated 10 operating system to have the same environment? If so how do you do this.

I lucked out and was warned, normally come in to complete operating system fresh install and it takes forever to it get back the way I had it. Thank You!

Brent

Not sure what kind of other settings you would need to transfer, if you have some settings from Autocad, those are the files that you need to import.

When I install a new installation of software, I always run the installer at default settings. Get it up and running as a default user. Make sure it works with the video and mouse and all that, in default settings of the software.

THEN, close the program and import the particular user files from the old installation into the new install.

Going back and forth to find and compare the files is easier if you actually 'copy' your entire Autocad (or whatever) folder onto your new hard disk. Don't install this version, Windows doesn't need to know about it or have it registered in the registry. Rename that copied installation as something that you will remember as only an archived version so you don't run from it. Plan to delete this folder eventually.

Then do like I suggested and run the actual installer and set the whole thing up as you were planning.
 
Not sure what kind of other settings you would need to transfer, if you have some settings from Autocad, those are the files that you need to import.

When I install a new installation of software, I always run the installer at default settings. Get it up and running as a default user. Make sure it works with the video and mouse and all that, in default settings of the software.

THEN, close the program and import the particular user files from the old installation into the new install.

Going back and forth to find and compare the files is easier if you actually 'copy' your entire Autocad (or whatever) folder onto your new hard disk. Don't install this version, Windows doesn't need to know about it or have it registered in the registry. Rename that copied installation as something that you will remember as only an archived version so you don't run from it. Plan to delete this folder eventually.

Then do like I suggested and run the actual installer and set the whole thing up as you were planning.

Thanks for the tip on the default install. Autocad over the years has made this as painless as it could be. In the start menu under Autodesk there is a import/export and import from older version. Believe it or not I can import my custom user files and essentially it pops up damn near like I left it. My whole environment is transferred to a new version, a new box or operating system.

Which is what I was hoping Windows was now catching up and would be able to do. I don't do change all that well, I'm still viewing Windows in classic mode, very similar or as close as I can get to the way I started with Windows 3.11 stupid I know but I like it. They should have a utility function to do this by now.

One of my issues is this box is connected to a pretty large network. You have to have administrative privileges to do damn near anything. That alone has me at a huge handicap.

Thanks!

Brent
 
There is no transfer utility for Windows 10 like the old Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. Yet another useful feature that Microsoft has discontinued. Simply open the folder for your user account (in the Users folder) and copy the Documents, Pictures, Desktop and any other folders you use to an external drive. This will capture all of your data. You can't transfer the system preferences, settings etc. Once Win 10 is configured with your user account, copy the data folders into your new user folder, merging everything into the existing folders.

If you would like to make Win 10 look and feel more like 7, install Classic Shell (Classic Shell - Start menu and other Windows enhancements) or it's successor Open Shell (Open Shell 4.4.135 Download - TechSpot)
I use it myself and install it for my clients who were perfectly happy with 7 and hate change.
 
Doesn't much matter, the forced updates with win-10 will occasionally screw up your preferences anyway. Of course, the almighty microsoft knows better than you do what you want.
 
They pushed windows 10 on everyone with constant spam on older windows versions. I had a laptop with windows 7 that was several months old. I eventually did the forced upgrade. Then I spent about two weeks getting my laptop back too usable. Then the extra memory required by windows 10 maxed out my memory.
I seen it as Microsoft's way of getting old operating systems out of service and selling new computers.
I don't use my computer for work but I can see how some of those here that do would have spent a lot of time getting it sorted out.
Windows was user friendly. They sure threw a rock in [User friendly] with windows 10
I still prefer using the desktop option instead of windows 10 start page.
 
i'm missing something .... is this a company computer that you have no say as to what some asshole "i.t. guy" does to it?

windows 10 sucks. 7 or 8 running shell desktop is fine . it's hardly productive to have to start from scratch , reload
settings and drivers and software . there's always unforseeable snags .
 
i'm missing something .... is this a company computer that you have no say as to what some asshole "i.t. guy" does to it?

Yes that is exactly the way it is, it's just a work station, I log on to the network with a unique username and password, that lets on the network regardless what work station I'm using. The box I use daily all the Windows custom settings, desktop, browser settings, mail settings, Microsoft office settings are all stored locally on that box. Each person logs in all their personal settings laod just like it was.

Its getting to the point of being a major nuisance upgrading operating system just for the sake of doing so. I'm wondering if it will be a hassle getting Gibbs working on Windows 10?

Brent
 
I had no part in when this took place, my migration happened yesterday so I thought I'd update on the deal, again this is a corporate network box.

So I copied all the stuff stored on the local C; drive under my username to my documents on the network, also exported any user settings of programs that were important to me from the windows 7 box. I reckon You copy these things to a external hard drive too.

I logged onto the computer/network then grabbed all the user stuff I copied from the windows 7 box and threw in down in my user directory on the 10 box and Boom all my shit was there.

Installed Autocad2018 and got it working. Imported my Autocad2018 settings from the old box to the new one, edited the the file with the my lisp routines and Boom works just like it did on the old box. Even all the communication settings for transferring programs with Multi-DNC are good.

I'm Amazed at how this had a PITA factor of near zero. I'm running the home version of Windows 7 on my laptop. It's inevitable I will end up upgrading. This deal has me wondering if I can do this on a new
Windows 10 laptop?

Anyway in case someone finds this sometime in the future that's what I did and it was a breeze.

Brent
 








 
Back
Top