Migrate Music library without windows transfer

justmey2k · 21 Jun 2011

So my old PC's system files became corrupted by malware, with no way to recover the OS without a full install, I decided now was the time to switch to W7.

My problem is without being able to run the transfer wizard, How do I move my old library settings,album info, art and ratings to the new machine, which was installed on a clean new HD.

Please tell me it is as easy as finding the library files on the old HD and pasting them to the new.

.

Thanks for looking.

kado897 · 21 Jun 2011

If you're switching to win 7 what is it from. Does this mean a media player library on Vista / XP?

Gornot · 22 Jun 2011

Windows 7 will be much different than any other version of Windows you've tried in the past. I suggest deliberately starting fresh, from scratch, and just enjoy exploring.

justmey2k · 22 Jun 2011

kado897 said:

If you're switching to win 7 what is it from. Does this mean a media player library on Vista / XP?

Sorry, yes switching from Windows XP Pro, using WMP 11.

justmey2k · 22 Jun 2011

Gornot said:

Windows 7 will be much different than any other version of Windows you've tried in the past. I suggest deliberately starting fresh, from scratch, and just enjoy exploring.

Easier said than done, but thanks for the reply, thousands of songs=thousands of graphics=thousands of name changes= ONE GIANT HEADACHE.

BTW, If I have to I do, so can you tell me is there a setting I need to turn off right away
cause I don't want it to start changing my song titles. Assuming you use WMP?

Gornot · 23 Jun 2011

Well, you still can transfer music, videos and pics... the basics... if your documents have been clean in the past, I don't think they could get infected, too. So that's okay.

As for WMP, I suggest you set it up BEFORE you set up Windows Libraries, because WMP takes that information for its own libraries. When setting up WMP, make sure you disable any information downloading from the internet (i.e. missing metadata) and also make sure that it doesn't rename your files.

Migrate Music library without windows transfer-wmp12-options3.jpg

justmey2k · 24 Jun 2011

Gornot said:

Well, you still can transfer music, videos and pics... the basics... if your documents have been clean in the past, I don't think they could get infected, too. So that's okay.

As for WMP, I suggest you set it up BEFORE you set up Windows Libraries, because WMP takes that information for its own libraries. When setting up WMP, make sure you disable any information downloading from the internet (i.e. missing metadata) and also make sure that it doesn't rename your files.

TY for the reply, sounds like I'm out of luck on the database. Might be time to start thinking about a new program, cause this could happen again, and maybe the next time a standalone program will allow backups, or better options for transferring. Man so much work down the drain...... BTW thanks for the screen shot.

Gornot · 25 Jun 2011

No problem.

As for the "transfer", I would rather suggest an actual backup of the files on an external drive or DVDs. Music libraries in any media player can easily be set up if you have your files; IMHO that's the most important thing: keeping my files safe. Settings and preferences can always be applied easily before/after.

Oh, and about your initial concerns, album info (metadata, otherwise known as tags) as well as art is automatically embedded into all music files, depending on if and how you used to tag your files. Ratings too, but not all players support writing ratings into actual files, so that might be the only thing you'll miss, at least with music.