I am getting messages upon boot up that my hard drive will die very soon, and will need to replace the hard drive. I do not wish to use some application to move my data and programs, but wish to do it manually. I am looking for a typical list of directories and files which need to be moved as well as how to generate a list of programs I have installed so I can decide whether I wish to reinstall them on the new machine.
I just backed up My Documents, My Pictures, and My Videos. I also backed up my Outlook pst file and browser bookmarks. EDIT. In hindsight, I probably should just have backed up C:\Users\Michael where Michael is the only normal user. I rarely use the admin user, and don't think I need to back it up.
Any other "typical" directories or files which should be moved? What about public/private keys, or is this handled under My Documents?
How can I generated a printable list of programs I have installed?
EDIT. I think I answered this using Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Select-Object DisplayName, DisplayVersion, Publisher, InstallDate | Format-Table –AutoSize
The operating system originally was Windows 7 Professional (I still have the DVD) and was updated to Windows 10 for free. Do I need to backup any sort of license?
Best Answer
When I am about to do something with the drive containing the Windows installation, I care about:
C:\Users\myUser\AppData. Holds all the config files for my programs, might come handy. Here are all the things like keys, bookmarks, POP3 email accounts, browser config and bookmarks, etc. It's a hidden folder so you need to enable them showing up in Windows Explorer settings (Folder settings).C:\Users\myUser\DocumentsC:\Users\myUser\PicturesC:\Users\myUser\DownloadsC:\Users\myUser\check here for hidden folders beginning with a dot., like.android,.cache,.sshand so on. Might relate to settings of program you need later.C:\ProgramData. More program config files that could come handy.C:\Windows\Fonts. If you care about some extra fonts you installed or stuff, you might need to get your ttf files.To get a record of installed programs, you might use a script or even the mighty CCleaner!
Finally, once you install Windows 10 it will activate automatically, so no problem with that. I suggest downloading the W10 ISO from here and create a bootable USB to install W10 directly, see here how to do it.