iTune library and iPod Touch to new iMac

I'm currently running an XP sp2 machine and have my iTunes library consolidated on an external HD. Am I correct in understanding that I would just go to the new iMac, open ~Music and then move the iTunes folder that I find in there to the desktop and then copy the iTunes folder from my external into the ~Music directory and then trash the iTunes folder that I had moved to the desktop? Would that do the trick?

And when I plug my Touch in to the new iMac - what happens there? Will it erase everything on my Touch first or?? I don't want my entire library synced to my Touch - that's not the way I have it currently. I have only selected music,podcasts,audiobooks on the Touch. How do I keep that current selection when I move to the new iMac?

Thanks,
Mark

Not sure what you're looking for. And you didn't really state what you're trying to do. I have all my music on an external harddrive connected to my iMac that way I can share it through multiple machines but not take up double the space, or have to manage being up to date between the two libraries. To do that I went to iTunes>Pref>Adv and pointed the location to the external.

If you're trying to move your library from an external to a internal drive I would just drag the music inside the folder (iTunes) created by the program iTunes. Then just make sure your iTunes is pointed at where the music is and you'll probably have to go into iTunes and File>Add to Library.

A note before you do that, in iTunes preferences>advanced. You have options for "keep iTunes media folder organized" I prefer to keep that checked. as it will organize the physical files as you edit things in the iTunes application. And theres also a box for copying files to iTunes. I also keep that checked for the reason of this...

Lets say I download a song on my desktop. Then I want to add it to iTunes. Without this box being checked iTunes will play the song from the desktop and to get it in the iTunes folder I have to drag it there manually. When this box is checked, I add the song to iTunes and it creates a copy in the folder automatically and I just delete the one off the desktop.

Anthony,
Yeh, I didn't make it very clear did I? I was thinking about moving what I had on the external back on to the internal of the iMac, since I now had 1TB of HD space. It had run a bit slow attached to my ancient PC, so thought it would be zippier on the internal of the iMac, but it sounds like you have no such issues running of the external. You don't have issues with proper path when you switch the external to other machines and run iTunes? (i.e, one machine assigning the external as F: drive and another machine maybe assigning it as G drive,etc). I do have the boxes checked you mentioned and do the same thing you do in that regard. Also, how do you back up that external that is loaded up with your music? (I was thinking Time Machine would handle that nicely if I had iTunes loaded on the internal).

Any thoughts on my iPod Touch question?

Thanks!
Mark