Moving LR files from Win XP to Win 7 Computer

Hi. I have a new laptop with Windows 7 soI am in the process of installing my programs onto the new computer and also moving all my files from my XP machine to my new Windows 7 computer.

In XP, the My Pictures folder is a subfolder of My Documents, but in Windows 7, the My Pictures folder is not.

Win XP: User>My Documents>My Pictures
Win 7 : User>My Pictures

In the past, if moving from one XP computer to another I would simply copy the entire My Documents folder to the new computer, install LR, and everything worked fine.

With the My Pictures folder being in a different place in Win 7, won't I have a problem with LR not finding the files, or will I be OK? It takes ages to move/copy files over, so I want to do it right the first time. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!
~Dom

Copy the old My Pictures to the new one. When you launch LR it won't find the old catalog because the path to it is different and will, therefore, create a new empty catalog. You don't want to use that catalog, so go immediately to File/Open Catalog and navigate to the old catalog (User/My Pictures/Lightroom/xxx​x.lrcat). LR will tell you that it will close and relaunch with the old catalog. When it opens again your photo folders will be in the Folders panel but they will have question marks next to them (because the paths are different). Click on the question mark next to the highest parent folder (My Pictures?), select Find and navigate to that folder. LR should update the locations for all the sub-folders.

Keep in mind with LR that the location where your CR2 files are located is one location you need to resolve, and the location where your LR Catalog file is located is a separate location which you need to resolve.

You need to copy your Catalog file (.lrcat) from the old computer to the place where LR expects to find it by default (or where you tell LR to look for it)

After LR knows where the Catalog file (.lrcat) is located in the new computer, you need to copy the folders with the .CR2 files into a comparable folder structure in the new computer. If (most likely!) the entire tree structure is not identical in the two computers, the folder locations in the new computer will have a '?' next to each folder name. So then you need to tell LR where within the new computer folder structure to find the folders with the .CR2 files

WinXP vs. Win7 structures are typicall a bit different at the highest levels. For example, the User specific folders are located in c:\Document and Settings\(username) in WinXP while they are in C:\Users/(username) in Win7. So something stored within your user account in WinXP might not be directly located within the Win7 computer because the pathname is not identical

Thanks for the responses. It took about 2.5 hours to copy the entire XP "My Pictures" folder contents to the Win 7 computer's "My Pictures" folder.

I downloaded and installed LR 3.3, entered the Serial Number, and to my surprise LR 3.3 automatically found the catalogue file and the photo files/folders! I didn't have to do anything other than copy the My Pictures folder and install LR. It was quite easy actually.

Thanks for the tips and for giving me the confidence to proceed with the transfer.

~Dom