Desktop files and their icon arrangement

[Richard Lowen]

I'm trying to transfer the desktop from one HD that is going bad
to another HD. The desktop has a bunch of files on it that I want
to rescue, and I want to maintain the arrangement of their icons
on the transferred desktop.

I have copied over the Desktop folder in C:\Documents and Settings,
and I've copied the desktop.ini files in C:\Documents and Settings
and in C:\Documents and Settings\AdminAccount\Local Settings,
but the old desktop still comes up when I boot. What other files do
I need to point to the new Desktop folder and to arrange the icons
of its files?


Rick Lowen

 

[Galen]

In Richard Lowen <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

I'm trying to transfer the desktop from one HD that is going bad
to another HD. The desktop has a bunch of files on it that I want
to rescue, and I want to maintain the arrangement of their icons
on the transferred desktop.

I have copied over the Desktop folder in C:\Documents and Settings,
and I've copied the desktop.ini files in C:\Documents and Settings
and in C:\Documents and Settings\AdminAccount\Local Settings,
but the old desktop still comes up when I boot. What other files do
I need to point to the new Desktop folder and to arrange the icons
of its files?


Rick Lowen

Try this:

http://www.pcinspector.de/clone-maxx/uk/welcome.htm

It's your best shot. You have two drives I think. One old and nearly dead.
One new. This will copy the whole thing to the new drive for you and do so
outside of the OS. It will make a complete copy so that you can still have
your OS and all your settings. Your old drive is nearly dead you said so
doing it outside of the OS *might* help you some as less is loading and
there's less chance of errors. I'd try to clone the system over to the new
drive in it's entirety. I'd have tried that instead of trying to move
favorites and the like individually. It's NTFS capable and it's free. This
will not be valid if instead of copy/paste to move these files manually
you've been using cut/paste as these files won't be on the drive you're
cloning any longer. As it works outside of the OS and has less to load it's
probably your best shot to get the files to move and it will tell you if it
has errors moving stuff.

Galen

 

[Richard Lowen]

Richard Lowen had this to say:


Try this:

http://www.pcinspector.de/clone-maxx/uk/welcome.htm

It's your best shot. You have two drives I think. One old and nearly dead.
One new. This will copy the whole thing to the new drive for you and do so
outside of the OS. It will make a complete copy so that you can still have
your OS and all your settings. Your old drive is nearly dead you said so
doing it outside of the OS *might* help you some as less is loading and
there's less chance of errors. I'd try to clone the system over to the new
drive in it's entirety. I'd have tried that instead of trying to move
favorites and the like individually. It's NTFS capable and it's free. This
will not be valid if instead of copy/paste to move these files manually
you've been using cut/paste as these files won't be on the drive you're
cloning any longer. As it works outside of the OS and has less to load it's
probably your best shot to get the files to move and it will tell you if it
has errors moving stuff.

Galen

Thanks Galen, but I don't think the old HD is well enough
to bear a cloning operation. In any event, I've been able to
transfer all the files from the Desktop on the old HD to the
new HD, although without the 2D arrangement that was on the
screen for the old HD.

The problem lay in my assumption that [username]\Desktop
behaved like just another folder. I had renamed the new HD's
[username]\Desktop folder to [username]\DesktopSAV-05.4.14
to save the contents and then created a new [username]\Desktop
folder with the files and folders taken from the [username]\Desktop
on the old HD. But the screen contents remained linked to
[username]\DesktopSAV-05.4.14, not the new
[username]\Desktop. It was like the folder that had been renamed
[username]\DesktopSAV-05.4.14 remained hardlinked to the
screen regardless of what it was named.

To solve the problem, all ll I did was to save the contents of
[username]\DesktopSAV-05.4.14 in another folder and to
copy the old HD's [username]\Desktop contents to the new HD's
[username]\DesktopSAV-05.4.14, and then to change its name
back to [username]\Desktop. Now all changes in
[username]\Desktop are reflected on the screen and vice versa.

By the way, the folder above My Computer is Desktop, and
it seems to represent what is on the screen. Although I never
did find out where the icon's 2D arrangement on the screen
was recorded, I'm guessing now that it's in the Registry.


Rick Lowen