Helping a mate.

[hoody]

You won't believe this but I've been helping a mate change over from win 7 to a 21.5" iMac, 0S x 4, Mavericks. I'm 67 and he's 83, and neither of us is what you'd call a technophile

At the same time, we installed a new router (wi-fi) so that his wife can use her puny win 8 notebook both work ok with the web and mail.

Anyway, we used migration assistant which seemed to go well, but no bookmarks, contacts or photo's came over; they did when I did the change from my xp machine.. I started the programme again on the mac and the win pc, got to where the mac is looking for the win machine, but that was it, it couldn't find it. I tried with the MA app open on the win machine and with it closed, but that didn't help. I rebooted both machines and still no good.

I've got some more questions, but I'll try and get this sorted out first.

 

[leadfoot]

I am not to sure but I think when XP to Win7 changed. Files data also changed eg doc to docx in format in other words dedicated to the OS software. I could way off beam here.

 

[hoody]

Thanks leadfoot.

If that's the case, do you know if I can do anything to get these things transferred ?

I'm still wondering why the migration assistant now won't connect to the win 7 machine. I disabled the firewall and av software (microsoft security essentials) but am now wondering if they've re-enabled automatically. I'll have a look next time I go over.

I could sit there and manually copy all their email addresses over... what a drag, but bookmarks and photo's, well..

 

[GregR]

I am not to sure but I think when XP to Win7 changed. Files data also changed eg doc to docx in format in other words dedicated to the OS software. I could way off beam here.

Docx, Pptx etc are just new formats for Microsoft Office. They are not OS specific and will not cause any issues with migration.

 

[GregR]

Thanks leadfoot.



If that's the case, do you know if I can do anything to get these things transferred ?



I'm still wondering why the migration assistant now won't connect to the win 7 machine. I disabled the firewall and av software (microsoft security essentials) but am now wondering if they've re-enabled automatically. I'll have a look next time I go over.



I could sit there and manually copy all their email addresses over... what a drag, but bookmarks and photo's, well..

I've handled migrations from older versions of Windows to newer versions more times than I can remember. The concept between Win and MacOS is the same. My best advice - forget about migration assistants. Everyone has different apps and stores their docs in different locations. Just copy everything manually for piece of mind.

For example, all your pics are likely in a single folder, whether or not they're divided into subfolders. So just copy the whole pics folder. Do the same for your docs, music, videos, etc.

For bookmarks etc (in your browser and in apps like Google Earth), you may need to export manually and reimport.

There really is no one-step magic solution.

 

[hoody]

Well I sat there and manually copied all their email addresses over... I really enjoyed that still, it's done now.

I then went to the win7 machine and tried to copy some of their photo's on to a usb stick. I highlighted some pic's and right clicked but no means of copying them came up, there's also nothing in any of the drop down menu's either. On my old xp machine, I could highlight single or multiple photo's and right click which is when I could get the option of 'move' or 'copy to' and then pick where I wanted them to go to, but this win7 has me stumped. It's showing the usb stick as 'store n' go' so it knows it's there. I can't even find an export button to click. The only option there is, is to copy to the clipboard... I don't even know what that is (just to give you an idea what you're dealing with), and if I did, would I then be able to get them onto the usb stick ?

 

[GregR]

The only option there is, is to copy to the clipboard... I don't even know what that is (just to give you an idea what you're dealing with), and if I did, would I then be able to get them onto the usb stick ?

Not sure what's going on with your right click. Either way, select the files you want. Press Ctrl C on your keyboard to copy. Browse to the folder where you want to copy them - you can do this by navigating from My Computer. Then press Ctrl V to paste.

 

[hoody]

Thanks but it still won't work for me. I'm trying to get the pic's on to an emptu 8G usb stick, but even though it shows up on 'c' drive and properties tells me it's empty, I still can't send the pic's to it. Anymore help is welcome... please.

 

[GregR]

but even though it shows up on 'c' drive

C drive is the drive onto which Windows is installed. If you have a CD/DVD installed, this will be D drive, which means that in My Computer, the next storage device (probably your USB stick) will show up as E drive. What happens if you double-click your USB stick in My Computer? If should open a window. Also, has this stick been used before or is it new? Either way,
it should be formatted correctly. Please give more info on USB stick.

 

[hoody]

Yes if I double click on E drive it comes up, but empty, which it is. So far, so good. This same thing happens with an empty formatted stick, or with an empty un-formatted one. As I say, it's having no problem showing itself, I just can't find a way to transfer those pic's.

It's probably something I'm doing wrong, but I practiced last night on my wifes laptop which is also win7 and had no luck.

As us expat poms say 'this is doing my 'ead in'

 

[GregR]

Once you have selected the files in their original location (Ctrl click to select multiple files, or just select a whole folder), then copy by pressing Ctrl C or by right-clicking the selected files and choosing Copy from the menu that pops up.

Then, open your USB stick in My Computer. Before you press Ctrl V to paste, make sure the window for the usb stick is in focus by clicking once in the main white panel. Otherwise, right-click in the same main white panel and choose Paste from the pop-up menu.

Another method you could try is drag and drop. Open the source folder with the files you want to copy. Resize it by dragging the edges so that it takes up the left half of your screen. Then open the USB stick window and do the same so it takes up the right half of your screen. Select the files and folders to copy with the mouse then drag them from one window to the next.

 

[hoody]

Well thanks all. I went back to the old boy today and had another go. I'm really glad to say I cracked it. I selected all the pic's and put a dvd in the drive instead of trying to use a usb drive. I managed to copy them over and they came out as file names and numbers. Well I thought I might as well try it, so I took my super drive over and transferred it all to iTunes on his iMac... magically, the mac took the files and turned them all back into photo's.

Now all I need to do for him is to either find out why win7 won't let me format 'C' drive, or rip it out and smash it up. Actually I'm ready for plan B. I don't know if he is though.