Moving profiles (Again - sorry!)

I'm trying to move to a new PC and change from Win98 and NS7.1 to WinXP pro and Mozilla 1.7.1.
After finding several older/inferior descriptions on the net, I've settled on Ramona's guide to moving profiles at http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/ns7pctopc.html, but I'm afraid I'm still a bit confused by some of the instructions.

I've got a Jaz drive, so I've copied the entire profiles directory with four Netscape profiles in it from the old PC as suggested in the first paragraph.

Then, in the second paragraph, it talks about which files you need to copy if you've only got a floppy drive: is this also the list of files that I am going to PASTE into the new profile on the new PC? And if so, do I now really have to paste them, one at a time, into all the different folders to avoid copying the files I shouldn't (such as the .msf files, downloads.rdf etc.)? And then do it all four times (for the four profiles)?

For Mail, do I have to paste the matching files into "Local Folders" as well as my "pop.isp" folder?

As I shouldn't copy across the .msf files, should I leave the existing ones in the new profile or should I delete them and let Mozilla re-create them?

I've got an address book abook.mab, abook-1.mab, and abookC6E.mab! How do I recreate that one?

It all seems a heck of a lot of work!

Also, on a more general point, the "users" system on XP pro seems to work really well (eg several users can log on all at once).
So: would it make sense to ignore the user profiles management in Mozilla and simply install it with a single "default" user into each Windows profile?

 

Welcome to the Forum, Andy P!

Hi Andy,

If you have been able to copy your entire Profiles folder to your Jazz drive, then simply ignore the instructions for copying to a floppy drive. Those instructions are only if you have no other storage media other than a floppy drive.

Yes, there is a simple way to do the move, but having to consider that many users are novices, I thought it best to go into detail. Also, many users still have older PC's with no CD burners, etc...

For the more advanced user:
Once Mozilla is installed, remove the existing Profiles folder. It should have only default files, as you haven't copied any of your profile data to the new PC.
Create a backup folder: C:\Backup
Cut/Paste the new Profile into this folder. You can delete it later.

Next:
Copy the Profiles folder from the old PC and paste it into the Mozilla folder on the new PC. The Mozilla folder is located here:
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla

Next:

Open the prefs.js file, which is located here, using WordPad:
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\profilename\XXXXXXXX.slt

I suggest WordPad, as it has a Find and Replace feature. You will do a "Find" in the prefs.js file for the Windows 98 path, and then replace that path to reflect the Windows XP path.
Right click the prefs.js file
Select: "Open with "
Scroll down to WordPad
In the prefs.js file, click on "Edit | Find "
Enter: "Windows" - (this will take you to the first occurrence of the Profile path, and the word "Windows" will be highlighted)
Next: click on "Edit | Replace" (the Find window will close)
In the "Replace" field copy the path to your XP profile which will be:
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\profilename\XXXXXXXX.slt
Of course you will have filled in your XP user name and your Mozilla user name...

Now keep doing the Find and Replace until you have changed all the Profile paths to that of Windows XP.

Open Mozilla
The Profile Manager will open
Enter the name of the Profile you just copied to the new PC
Now open Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings | Server Settings
Ensure that the path to your Mail accounts point to the correct location and that all the information is correct.

That should do it...

No, use Mozilla's Profile management. It's for the protection of your privacy that Mozilla has placed the Profile where it is. From Mozilla FAQ:

7.4. What is the @$%#@$%#.slt directory in my profile directory?

This is called salting. Profile data is stored in a randomly named directory to make it difficult for malicious programs to find profile data (see bug 56002 and 97180)

Once you are set up, and running, make a backup copy of your Profile, and do this on a frequent basis. In the event of any problem down the road, you will have all your data intact.

Post back with any further questions you might have.

Ramona

 

Many thanks for your speedy and comprehensive reply, Ramona.
Your "new" method made perfect sense and was easy to carry out.
The only trouble was...I simply could not get it to work.

Following it to the letter, whenever I got to the end where you open Mozilla and the profile manager opens, I would get a message saying "Mozilla cannot use the profile 'Andy' because the directory containing the profile cannot be found. Please choose another profile or create a new one ".

I'm SURE I got the path right in all the instances in prefs.js (although one thing that struck me as slightly odd is that all paths in prefs.js are shown with DOUBLE backslashes (eg "C:\\WINDOWS\\Profiles\\Andy\\Application Data\\Mozilla\\Profiles\\Andy\\y0rxj6b2.slt "); - I tried both single and double versions when I changed all the paths, without any success.

In the Profiles folder are registry.dat and pluginreg.dat, and if I look at registry.dat with notepad (I know I can't edit it), I can see it is pointing to the default profile (and its .slt folder) plus any others that I create with the profile manager. If I delete registry.dat and the default profile folder, they are immediately recreated next time I start Moz.

Basically it seems that Profile Manager only lists profiles that *IT* has created. It ignores anything that I manually put in the profiles folder, even if it has the same name as a profile which I've created and then moved out of the folder. I presume this is because the newly created registry.dat has an entry with the path to the default profile along with its .slt name?

The good news is that, having spent so long playing, I decided I'd probably done more work than if I'd used your original method; so I started from scratch, and I've succeeded in getting one profile across (I think!)

The only bits I wasn't sure about (as I said in my original post) were:
1) What to do with the .msf files inthe "new" profile (i.e the one I'm copying into). In the end I tried deleting them and let Moz. re-create them, which worked fine. Maybe your instruction s could be more specific on this point.

2) At first I ignored the mail files in the Local Folders folder, but after I'd got all the main mail across, I did a second copy and paste of the local folders files. For some reason the few files in the "Sent" folder refused to appear, until I closed and re-started Moz.

3) I successfully copied my additional address books with your method, but couldn't get the "collected addresses" across, until I exported it as an LDIF
That imported as a new address book and I could copy the individual entries from there into the new "collected addresses ".

4) There were quite a few "other" files in the profile that weren't in either your list of files to copy or your list of files NOT o copy. It might put peoples' minds at rest if you could say in your instructions either "only copy these named files" or "copy everything you find EXCEPT these named files ", if you see what I mean!

5) I haven't managed to get Newsgroups across yet, but I admit I deviated from the instructions and didn't manually configure any News Server accounts at the beginning. I must say the instructions get less specific about the news folder, only mentioning swapping the ".RC" files. I see all my newsserver folders also have .msf files for each nesgroup. Should I not copy (or erase) those in the same way as in the mail folders?

Well, it's VERY late now, thanks again for the best (original) description of how to achieve the move. I'd love to know why I couldn't make your latest method work!

 

I was about to feel all warm and fuzzy, and then your last statement burst my bubble!

I'm surprised that you didn't get it to work, as I've done it at least a dozen times, and after changing the paths in the prefs.js file, and then creating a new Profile with the same name as that of the one I just moved, it always works.

Did you by chance "type" the new path in prefs.js? Or did you copy the path in Windows Explorer, and paste it in, when you did your find/replace with WordPad? I'm thinking you may have a typo. The paths should have double back slashes ( \\ ). Did you remove the existing Profiles folder and place it in a temp directory? You shouldn't have to do anything to the registry.dat file. I have never had to edit it or recreate it when making the move from one OS to the other. I just plug in the new folder and do the edits as described above.

You might also have tried deleting the Andy Profile, close Profile Mgr. then recreate the Andy Profile.

As to the Mail, the guideline is pretty specific about which files to copy to the new PC:
Copy all the files with no .msf extensions from the OLD profile Mail Account folder to the NEW Mail Account folder:. There is nothing to do with the existing MSF files, as they will have the correct header information. That is why you don't copy the MSF files from the old PC, if you are following the floppy instructions. However, if that is confusing, I can add an explanation to the Solutions page as to why you don't delete the existing MSF files.

As to the list of files to copy, I did say:
If you have no Zip drive or CD-RW drive, and you have to use floppy disks, these are the files you should copy:
I suppose I could add: and nothing else if that would make it clearer.

The collected addresses are in the history.mab file. You copied the file to the new PC, and nothing was in the file?

About your Newsgroups:
You can go ahead and copy all the files, or you can delete the MSF files if you wish. It is not, however necessary to delete them. It seems to make no difference at all in the Newsgroups.

I hope you enjoy Mozilla, and I believe you will. Netscape 7.2 should be out within the next few weeks, and it is based on Mozilla 1.7 code, so that should be interesting.

Ramona