Can anyone help me with advice for transfering stuff to new laptop?

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I've just bought a new laptop and have done the basic set up, installed Firefox and 'fun' offline stuff like choosing a screen saver etc but I wonder if anyone can give me some basic advice on transfering all my stuff from the old laptop onto the new?

For example how do I transfer my bookmarks ?

Should I install Microsoft Office before I transfer Word files? (I don't want to use the trial version that came with the laptop as I prefer an older version). Will files automatically find their way into the right place later if I transfer them before installing Office?

Would it be best to transfer the entire 'C' drive (and 'D' etc.) onto the new laptop and then eliminate what I don't want? Will a pen drive be big enough to do this?

Many thanks in advance if anyone can help with this!

Bumping this as it's busy tonight!

and again...

For transferring bookmarks, there's usually advice available via the Help tab at the top of the screen - click on that and type into the search box "transferring bookmarks to another computer". But if the result is a bit confusing (if sometimes is), then if you specify here what browser you use someone could advise further.

For Word - it doesn't matter what order you do things in, only that you transfer your documents to where Word expects them to be, and the default location is
C:\Users\ your name \Documents\

But it's probably easier to install MS Office first (but don't forget to go through the registration process), then load up Word, type and save a test document, use Windows Explorer to navigate through C:\Users\etc to check where Word saved it. That's where you need to transfer all your Word documents.

I wouldn't advise simply transferring all of the C: and D: drives because you might end up with conflicts.

"only that you transfer your documents to where Word expects them to be, and the default location is C:\Users\ your name \Documents\ "

Documents can be in other places, they don't have to be in that default location, it depends on how you organise your files. So you don't have to work out where that default folder is and copy the files there, the files will work wherever they are.

However you might want them there, if that's how you organise things, but that's your choice, you won't break anything by doing something else.

"I wouldn't advise simply transferring all of the C: and D: drives because you might end up with conflicts."

If you copy everything on the old C: drive to the new C: drive in exactly the same place then you will have trouble. However if you make a folder on C: called "The Old Computer" and then into that make two other folders called "C" and "D" then you can copy everything from the old C: drive to C:\The Old Computer\C and everything from the old D: drive to D:\The Old Computer\D without causing any conflicts or problems.

However what you won't want to do is to run any programs from those folders, that could very easily cause trouble. But doing this is a great and very easy way to make sure that you get everything off of the old computer and onto the new one and you can then hunt through it at your leisure to make sure you find everything.

As to how to do the copy....

"Will a pen drive be big enough to do this?"

Unless you have a very big USB stick (which is I guess what you mean?) and a very tiny old computer this is unlikely to work.

What you ideally need is an external USB disk drive to copy the files over with. That makes the process a doodle and you will want to be backing up your stuff somewhere as well as the computer anyway, so once you've done the transfer use it as a back up device. Never have the files only on your laptop, one day it will break and everything will be lost.

Google for the the files and settings transfer wizard. That will help with some stuff, although it's pretty limited. That should work over the network, although I seem to remember having a lot of problems when I tried it.

You certainly can't transfer the contents of a disk on a pen drive unless it's a very small disk, by current standards.

You should be able to transfer most files across the network, but I don't use Windows, so I couldn't advise on the best way. I guess something like making directories you want shareable on the old machine, then going onto the new machine and copying them should work.

BadgersPaws - I know that Word works wherever the documents are, but the OP was asking if transferred files would automatically find their way to the right place. I got the impression she might use Word in the way a lot of people do in saving to the default location and not realise/not want to save documents anywhere else. In those situations, transferring documents to the default location helps in continuing to use Word in the same way as before in that File -> Open gives immediate access to all Word documents without drilling back up to C: drive and then drilling back down to wherever I thought I'd saved the darned thing. (And then remembering next time that the File -> Open option is "sticky".)

I have a pretty complex structure on my desktop, with files of all kinds in various directories (and sub-sub-whatever directories ), but on my laptop I just use the default location because any important documents I type there will subsequently be transferred to the appropriate place (for me) on my desktop.

I do use a rather old (pen) usb drive to transfer files, but your point about using an external drive for both transfer and backup is a very good one. A lot of people don't understand about backups/external drives, so sometimes there are heart-rending stories of people losing everything when their computer crashes irretrievably, or worse. (I use an external drive for backups, and I keep that in my bedroom - should there be a zombie attack in the night, I'd just grab my handbag, which has my credit card and mobile phone, plus my external drive, and exit out my pre-planned escape route - remembering, hopefully, to drag my DH out as well.)

CruelAndUnusualParenting - I've just googled for the files and transfer wizard (for Windows 7), and when I clicked on the top link to Microsoft I was asked if I wanted to update MS Silverlight. Having said no to that, because I have no idea what Silverlight is, I was then presented with a download option for Silverlight which I obviously dismissed (unless I wanted to spend time finding out wtf Silverlight actually does - which I don't). Wizards should make things easy for non-techy people, but sometimes they don't.

I've been using computers since the BBC-B. I feel very sorry for people who are more recent users of computers because it seems to me that things have become more complicated/confusing in recent years. I wonder how the OP is doing, because buying a new computer and transferring from the old to the new should be easy-peasy, and suppliers of hardware should be prompting major software companies to make that transition a lot easier than it currently is.

"I have no idea what Silverlight is"

Silverlight is (or possibly was according to the latest news) Microsoft's version of Flash, so it's a way of running "heavier" tasks than a "normal" web page can manage.

"because buying a new computer and transferring from the old to the new should be easy-peasy, and suppliers of hardware should be prompting major software companies to make that transition a lot easier than it currently is."

Apple do make it very easy on Macs, you connect the two machines with a cable and then there's a built in tool that sorts the whole thing out for you.

However...

When upgrading Macs I still do what I described above. I use the external disk drive that I'm using for my backups to do a complete dump of the old machine's disk drive(s). I then copy that complete dump onto the new machine in a folder named "old computer", or something similar, and then go hunting through it for the files that I actually want.

Which is exactly what I also do for Windows PCs.

So even when tools are provided there's a lot to be said for doing it the belt and braces old fashioned way and not trusting an automated process to move your very valuable files.