Let Experts do Data Transfer
Professionals Can Make the Job an Easy Switch
As often happens with these articles, today I am drawing from another experience we have had with a new customer during the week. In this case we are going to talk about the replacement of an older laptop that we had never previously worked on.
The customer had opted for one of our Eco laptops and was paying us to transfer all their previous data across from the old laptop. There are many ways to go about this but only one right way. If the customer is asking for data transfer it is because they would otherwise have had trouble getting everything across themselves.
What the above logical assumption leads to is that it then becomes our job to get Desktop items back to the new Desktop, Documents to Documents, Downloads to Downloads, Music to Music, Pictures to Pictures, Videos to Videos, Internet Favourites to Internet Favourites and the existing emails / address book to another email package. Most of this is fairly easy and ever since Windows 7 Microsoft has given us ‘User Libraries’ to help sort our data.
Where it becomes more difficult is when the customer has created their own custom folders on the root of C drive, or when they have poorly written software that buries use data in obscure places – or when the previous IT company did a blanket transfer from the even more previous laptop to the one we are replacing. In this instance it was the latter problem above.
On the root of C drive was a folder labelled ‘old laptop’ which still had a complete blanket copy of EVERY file from their previous laptop – which was Windows 7. So, this folder had all the user library folders plus all the Windows folders – basically a massive pile of problems! Can you believe that within this pile of problems was another folder called ‘old PC’ which had another blanket copy of a previous Windows XP machine – complete with the famous ‘My Documents’ folder of the day and again all the Windows XP system folders.
Talk about the propagation of an error, and if you are confused by the above don’t stress because it confused the heck out of us as well! Upon questioning the customer admitted that they have had problems finding their old data for the last 10 years. What is also concerning is that operating systems do not like all the operating system files from a previous operating system sitting on a boot drive as it can more easily lead to corruptions.
As I indicated at the start of this article there is only one correct way to do this and although it takes a little more time it is an operation that only needs to be done once at the start of using a new PC. If done correctly the customer can then turn the new device on and be familiar with its use immediately as all their files are in the same places.
The other problem we often hear “the previous IT company said that they could not get all of my emails and the address book across from the old PC”. Again, this is a load of rubbish and simply highlights a lack of technical know-how. Regardless of what email package you are currently using, it will offer an export process and incidentally every modern email package offers some sort of import process.
If you are going to pay someone for ‘complete data transfer’ make sure you are getting a professional and logical transfer of all your important files and not just a blanket transfer of everything that an average 10-year-old could have completed.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
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