[SOLVED] Copying (not moving) Windows 10 settings to a new machine

[danytancou]

Hi everyone,

I've been running a Win10 desktop for some time now, but needed another, more powerful one. (Both are custom-built, with its own Windows 10 Pro license.) The two machines will be used "interchangeably" between my wife and I: when I need to do video editing and 3D work, I'll use the newer one; when my wife wants to play a demanding game, she'll use it. .. But that's not to say that I won't be doing work on the old one or that she won't play the games on it.

In order to have access to all files on both machines, I'm going to clone my data drives to new ones, and will then keep them synched up with FreeFileSync. (That's easy.)

My questions though, are these:

1. What's the best way to copy my Windows settings (i.e. desktop layout, preferences from Settings and Control Panel, etc.) to the new machine? (Is it even worth the bother, or should I just take an hour or whatever, to do my best to match them up?)

2. Even more importantly, is there any way to keep these settings in sync, so that there's little to no difference between the two? (I understand that I can't "copy" installed applications, and that I'll lose scratch data from Premiere and whatnot... unless.. hmmm.. I guess I could keep all that on one drive and just hot-swap when I need to... that would work, no?)


Thanks a lot,

Dany

 

[USAFRet]

Scratch for Photoshop is ephemeral. It has no relation to a different system, or different use of PS.

Some Windows settings can be synced via Windows 10. Logging in with the same account on 2 systems, you get some of the same experience.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026102/windows-10-about-sync-settings

Game settings? No.

 

[danytancou]

Scratch for Photoshop is ephemeral. It has no relation to a different system, or different use of PS.

Some Windows settings can be synced via Windows 10. Logging in with the same account on 2 systems, you get some of the same experience.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026102/windows-10-about-sync-settings

Game settings? No.

Thanks @USAFRet! Much appreciated. If you don't mind a couple of follow-up questions...

Understood about not needing to move scratch data around, but what about previews and cache from Photoshop & Premiere -- as well as Lightroom? (Would those not be handy to hot-swap?)

Didn't know about the Windows thing and I never used a Microsoft account.. is there a way to copy my settings, then, from my local account to a Microsoft account? Or is it simply a question of "linking" my local account to the Microsoft account?

As for game settings, that makes sense, since the hardware is different. (They're typically run with whatever GeForce Experience decides is appropriate. )


Thank you again,

Dany

 

[USAFRet]

You can maybe keep a central copy of the LR catalog. (I use LR almost daily)
But if that is not on the current system, performance WILL suffer.

The cache is relevant to only this session and what you're working on right now.

For MS and windows settings, I do not believe there is a way to copy from a local account across to a different system. Even with an MS account in the middle.

 

[danytancou]

Thanks again @USAFRet.

Didn't know that software cache works that way... learned something new!

I think I remember reading some time ago about the LR catalog data needing to be local... which is probably what prompted me to think about the hot-swap drive: this way, if I keep my pictures and LR catalog (and previews for Premiere, if it makes sense) on that, I can simply exit LR on one machine, unplug the drive, go to the other machine, plug in the drive, launch LR and continue working from where I left off.

For the MS thing.. I think I'll try it out first and see if it's actually worth it. (As I said, I can probably spend an hour to tweak the visual settings on the new system to match the old one, and then I'll leave it at that. )


Cheers,

Dany

 

[USAFRet]

I just tried a LR catalog on my NAS box:

 

[danytancou]

I just tried a LR catalog on my NAS box:

Right. However, I will not be using a NAS drive, or an external drive. I'll be using a regular SATA drive, either SSD or HDD, which is going to be connected to a SATA port on the motherboard via a SATA cable.. the only difference will be that the drive will not be permanently mounted into either computer, but plugged into one or the other via a hot swap "adapter" such as this one: https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=64_152&product_id=409&filter=191.


Cheers,

Dany

 

[USAFRet]

Right. However, I will not be using a NAS drive, or an external drive. I'll be using a regular SATA drive, either SSD or HDD, which is going to be connected to a SATA port on the motherboard via a SATA cable.. the only difference will be that the drive will not be permanently mounted into either computer, but plugged into one or the other via a hot swap "adapter" such as this one: https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=64_152&product_id=409&filter=191.


Cheers,

Dany

If the system sees it as an Internal drive, it would should work.

I just put that up there to see if, and how well, it worked.