As I was waving good-bye to my old, faithful, no-name PC and firing up my brand-new, faithful, no-name PC, E.M. Forster's Howards End sprang to mind. Like most novels of its era, Howards End had a theme. To make sure even his slow-witted readers got it, Forster put his theme on the title page: "only connect."

Forster had a wider social context in mind, but I used his theme as a personal, technological mantra. All I had to do was transfer my life's work from my old system to my new one. To connect--but how? And once I'd connected, what would I need to send across? I certainly didn't plan to duplicate every cluster on the new machine--there were programs, downloads, and little configuration tweaks on the old system that messed things up so much, I was glad to see them go.

In an attempt to "only connect"--and to do it right--I investigated various hardware, software, and techniques to migrate several hundred megabytes of data, e-mail, and programs. Since my systems weren't part of a conventional network (which would have radically simplified the task), I adopted some unconventional approaches that actually worked pretty well.

Only Connect: The Belkin Way

One effective conduit is Belkin's USB Direct Connect Adapter. Largely aimed at networking computers via USB port, this little, $89 Windows 98–only device was also just the trick for moving data from one PC to another.

Now, I could have used Windows' Direct Cable Connection software and a serial or parallel cable to exchange data between the two PCs. But I had a lot of data to move--a huge, audit trail of e-mails I pathologically keep, plus three years of work and a whole mess of multimedia files I couldn't bear to part with. It was enough to keep a serial or parallel connection busy for hours. Belkin's USB solution is 10 times faster than a parallel and 100 times faster than a serial port.

Belkin's USB Direct Connect Adapter is more than a one-trick pony. It lets you network PCs and laptops using TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, and NetBEUI, so you can share files, resources such as printers, and even play networked games. The company claims that the Adapter even supports the resource-sharing capabilities of a 10Base-T Ethernet card. That's slightly misleading, since you can't connect the device directly to an Ethernet hub to take advantage of network devices such as a Snap Server or JetDirect print server.

Belkin's adapter is about the size of a cigarette pack, and it comes with two 6-foot USB cables and an installation floppy. It doesn't require a power supply, drawing its juice from your PC, and installing it is a breeze. Turn off your PCs, plug the cable into the USB ports on both systems, turn them back on, and the Belkin adapter is detected. You're then instructed to install the software.

Of course, no network is this simple to install. After the automated setup, you must open Windows' Network control panel on each PC, set up identification, and set each PC's hard drive to be a shared resource. (This is more or less spelled out in Belkin's terse manual.) Once done, sharing data is as easy as finding the new computer in the Net work Neighborhood, clicking until you find the appropriate shared folder on the new system, and using Explorer to drag files from the old system to the new.

Only Connect: The Zip Way

Stepping up to a new system is a great spur to finally and fully back up your PC. And if you'd rather not move data via port connections, you can use the back up–and–restore process to move data from the old PC to the new one. The trick, of course, is having a Zip, Jaz, or other removable disk drive to transport the data. (Iomega's drives come with the necessary backup software.) You can also use just Windows Explorer to copy files to the disk.

If you only have one drive, you'll have to first back up to a disk, disconnect the drive from the first PC, and then install it on the second. Doing this is easier with a parallel drive, like the Zip Parallel product, but parallel drives are slow. Shifting a lot of data between machines using a parallel-port Zip drive will try your patience, even if you run Iomega's Parallel Port Accelerator utility to maximize throughput. But if you've got the time, it's pretty straightforward. Iomega is now selling a USB Zip drive for Windows 98 and the iMac that is much faster than its parallel-port cousin.

What To Move

A new system is a great excuse to make a new start, sweep away the clutter that held down your old system, and configure anew. Of course, that doesn't mean tossing your data. But what else should you move? Here's a guide to migrating to a new system.

Clean it up. Before you move anything, make sure the drives on both systems have been thoroughly optimized and checked for disk errors. Clear out your browser's cache, get rid of BAK and TMP files you don't need, and then back up your old system completely (at least all of the data) before you migrate anything.

Reinstall first. Instead of moving your applications, reinstall them on your new system from scratch, starting with the biggest, most commonly used programs. That way, they'll be at the "front" of the drive and will load a bit faster. Download the important upgrades and patches for these programs (not all the silly gewgaws you used once), and make sure everything's working fine. If the prospect of downloading and installing patches is frightening, check the Uninstallers section below.

Move your data. Now move your trusty data to the new system. If some truly big files (like databases and multimedia files) are used often, move them over first. This is a good time to consider changing your folder scheme. Microsoft Office programs tend to dump your files in \My Documents. You may want to organize things differently on the new PC, putting worksheets and databases in other, more logically labeled folders. If you're using a slow PC-to-PC connection or a parallel-port drive, compress the files and folders before you move them with a program like WinZip. That will radically shave transfer times.

Find that e-mail. Different e-mail programs store data in different places and different formats. Outlook Express, for example, stores your various mailboxes and their contents in IDX and MBX files in a nested folder buried under the \Windows or \Program Files folders--specifically, \ApplicationData\ Microsoft\ OutlookExpress\Mail. The Windows Address Book is tucked away in \ApplicationData\ Microsoft\ Address Book.

Most other e-mail packages keep their mailboxes somewhere in their own folders. If you can't find the mailbox, send an e-mail to yourself, then in Windows select Start*Find*Files or Folders, and do a date-based search for all files modified that day. Click the Date column in the results screen, and the files containing your mail data should be at the top.

Uninstallers. As I noted above, I'd recommend you reinstall most of your programs from scratch, rather than laboriously moving them from one PC to the next. Besides, unless you move them properly, the Windows Registry on your new system won't even know about them--a recipe for a crash casserole. (This may not be a problem with Windows 3.1 programs, but some may rely on specific INI files. When in doubt, reinstall these programs, too.)

If you're horrified by the idea of reinstalling all your programs and patches, get an uninstaller. Most commercial uninstaller programs can move an entire application to a new PC. I tested this feature in CyberMedia's UnInstaller, Symantec's (formerly Quarterdeck's) Remove-It and Clean Sweep, and they all do a creditable job. CleanSweep is my first choice.

Zip drives also come with a bundled program called AppMover. (It's on your Zip Tools disk.) It's not the fastest tool on the planet, but it can do the job.

Make book. Another bit of data you don't want to forget are your painstakingly compiled Web site bookmarks. Moving your Netscape Navigator bookmarks is a cinch--they're stored in a single file called Bookmark.htm, found somewhere under \Program Files\ Netscape\Program. (Look around--it may be under a \Users\Default folder.) Just reinstall Navigator on your new system, and copy Bookmark.htm into the appropriate folder.

Internet Explorer favorites are stored in the subfolders under \Windows\ Favorites. Each Favorite is a separate file, so you need to move the whole kit and caboodle to an identically named folder on the new system.

And that's it. Follow the steps above, and your data transport task will be at an end--one nearly as satisfactory as the ultimate connection at Howards End.

Where to Buy

USB Direct Connect

Belkin Components
800/223-5546
www.belkin.com
Street price: $89.99

UnInstaller 4.5

CyberMedia
800/721-7824
www.cybermedia.com
List price: $39.95

USB Zip Drive

Iomega
801/778-1000
www.iomega.com
Street price: $150

Remove-It

CleanSweep Deluxe
Symantec
800/683-6696
www.symantec.com
List prices: $19.95 and $59.95

© 1999 Matt Lake. All rights reserved.

Matt Lake has racked up experience in three major corporations and one branch of the government. He currently heads up a small business near Philadelphia. You can reach him at mattlake@usa.net.