[HOW TO] Copying user application data in Windows to other Windows installs

[Mira Yurizaki]

Note: Originally this guide was titled "Copying application data in Windows", which I later found to be somewhat ambiguous. This is about copying user-generated application data, as in the per-user settings and whatnot. This is not about copying the application itself.

 

If you've ever had to reinstall Windows or move to a new system, one of the things that may be of concern is migrating user application data from one install to another. Even if you're someone like me who throws all other data onto another drive or partition, there's still data that has to live in your Users folder because this is where applications expect to have the data they generate live. After having to either reinstall Windows or move user data from one computer to another enough times, I've settled on the method described in this tutorial for the following reasons:

• I like to have more control over what data migrates over. I tend to let data just accumulate, but a lot of it isn't really necessary to move over. But I do make a backup anyway.
• It's easy to do and isn't finicky.
• It's relatively fast

The alternatives to this are cloning and system imaging. The shortcomings I've found with either:

• This only works if you have the same hardware (i.e., it only works if reinstalling Windows)
• If you're migrating storage drives, there's the annoying requirement that the destination drive has to be of equal or greater storage capacity unless you have a smart tool.
• Cloning can be finicky.

The only requirement for this method is that you have to have another storage drive or partition to copy the data you want to keep. But at the very minimum, the storage drive's capacity only needs to meet or exceed the capacity of your user folder. And even then, it'll likely be smaller due to some files not really being required.

 

What are the benefits to this method?

The main benefits I see are:

• This doesn't mess with the state of the OS itself.
• You can effectively copy the data and state of the apps you use to another machine
• This is useful for avoiding some annoying things like having to reinstall extensions and add-ons for your apps or logging into things.
  • In my case, by backing up my Firefox's data, I can copy it to another instance and now that Firefox is set up and ready to go as if I was on the original machine. No logging in to any website, no remembering what extensions I installed or their settings.

What does this method NOT do?

If you have any applications that require activation, like games or productivity software, then this method will not preserve the activated state. The only way I know how to preserve activation state is to either clone or do a system image and restore.

 

What does this method involve?

The only thing you're doing is copying and pasting your files somewhere. Really, that's it! If you like peace of mind over the default copy and paste command, you can use the command line's robocopy command or use a third party tool like TeraCopy.

 

If you do this regularly, you may want to invest in something that can batch copy files and remain up to date. One such app I like to use is FreeFileSync

 

What should be copied?

The following folders can be copied outright:

• C:\Users\[username]\Desktop
• C:\Users\[username]\Documents
• C:\Users\[username]\Downloads
• C:\Users\[username]\Favorites
• C:\Users\[username]\Links
• C:\Users\[username]\Music
• C:\Users\[username]\Pictures
• C:\Users\[username]\Saved Games
• C:\Users\[username]\Videos
• And anything else in C:\Users\[username]\ that looks useful to you, except for AppData which I'll get to next

C:\Users\[username]\AppData is where things get a little tricky. This is where most of your local application data and settings live. However, while most things you do want to copy and keep, there are some that you should avoid because they may not be useful. These are:

• In C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\
  • Microsoft, except C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows. Though you may want to verify to see if you use anything in the folder
  • Packages, unless you've used the Microsoft Store as these are your installed Microsoft Store apps.
  • Publishers
  • Temp
  • VirtualStore
  • Basically if the folder name doesn't look familiar, it's probably safe to ignore copying
• In C:\Users\[username]\AppData\LocalLow
  • Some apps use this folder. But otherwise, everything else in here can be ignored.
• C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\
  • Microsoft, except C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows

When you do copy things from AppData, you may get a warning about being unable to copy or access certain files. You can ignore these warnings.

 

It may be prudent to also look in C:\ProgramData for anything that looks familiar, but I've yet to find a case where if I didn't back this up, I lost things.

 

How to restore the data to a new/different install of Windows

If you've reinstalled Windows or moving to a fresh copy, go ahead and install all your apps and drivers. But do not use any apps after installing them. Applications that have user profiles may create a default one that isn't compatible per se with the data you've copied. For example, Firefox creates a default profile but with a random string of characters. You can usually point the application to use the profile you want, but it's best to not use any of the apps yet.

 

Otherwise, all you have to do is copy the data back where you found it. If you've kept the directory structure at the destination of where you copied your data, you can simply do a select all, copy, then paste to your new user folder.

[jowillis78]

after copying a file using teracopy or another app do i just delete the copy off my hard drive?

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 hours ago, jowillis78 said:

after copying a file using teracopy or another app do i just delete the copy off my hard drive?

If you're satisfied with the results, you can delete the original.

[DrMacintosh]

The Mac Version of this is:

 

Applications Folder > Copy > Paste to your destination drive 

 

 

 

Though this will not work for applications that are not contained in the traditional .app package and have dependencies outside of those apps. For example, the Adobe CC Suite. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

On 8/2/2019 at 8:30 PM, DrMacintosh said:

Applications Folder > Copy > Paste to your destination drive

I'm not too familiar with macOS's application packaging schema, but if it's very similar to how other UNIX and UNIX like OSes work, most the data that I'm talking about here would actually live in your user folder under some dot folder.

 

The Applications folder I believe just stores the, well, application. And I'm pretty certain few, if any, apps save user data in that folder.