Is it safe and will work just fine to copy the entire user folder to a new installation?
We have a W7 installation with user Admin. Can I just copy the Admin folder in C:\Users\ to the same location on a fresh installation of Windows 7? The old was Ultimate while the new clean installation is Home Premium.
You can copy user files and folders from OLDPC-C:\Users\Any_Username to NEWPC-C:\Users\Any_Username. Source (OLDPC) username must not be the same than target (NEWPC) username, user Adam's files and folders can be copied to user Eve or both to Adam and Eve and so on.
Do not copy the whole user folder! It copies also the hidden AppData folder and several protected system files and folders which include application data and information about the old OS. These can cause severe complications on your new system.
YES: Copy any user's personal files and folders, including "My ..." folders.
NO: Do not copy the hidden and protected system files and folders.
Kari
Well I was intending to copy the AppData folder to keep her settings after transfer. Is it really dangerous? Obviously I shouldn't transfer critical stuff like NTUSER, but if its not a system file I can copy it? (Basically just copy but choose to skip any duplicates)
You need to reinstall the software, anyway, which creates new Appdata entries. Machine SID will change, file date stamps will not match and so on.
Extremely bad idea.
Are you trying to migrate apps from one PC to another?
While a clean install is a good policy, if you really want to migrate apps, you should go to the LapLink website. They used to have a PcMover app that would do just what you want -- I know it worked because I used it.
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