EasyTransfer - heavy stuff ....

Dear all,
I had the chuzpe to take the offer and transfer stuff from my old XP
Professional notebook to a new one with Vista Business using so called
"EasyTransfer". While the procedure is indeed easy - I used an
external USB drive to create one huge transfer file including user
settings for my main account plus a few folders like d:\documents and
settings (an additional folder I created that is NOT a special folder
just has the same name as the one on C.
On the target machine I decided to let all folders from source
computer's drive D: to be restored on target drive C: as it promised
to resolve conflicts by renaming folders and files.
Quite logically it also asked to which user the profile was going to
copied and I entered my account (which BTW, is a domain user account).
Well, after one hour I had a sucess message and I was eager to start
my previously installed Eudora to see all message boxes and accounts
beng readily installed. Nope!
Inspecting the folders I could see that not a single applicationdata
folder or file from the source computer was in place. The Eudora files
were all as new as after installation.
Now I save a folder named Documents and Settings (indeed it is the
German version "Dokumente und Einstellungen").
I suspect that this folder is the one that was originally located on
the D: drive of my old machine (as the naming has changed anyway in
Vista). Now it is getting weird: I tried to get into the folder but
was effectively rejected from doing so and no action (changing the
owner although already admin) at all was helpful in being able list
files.
I know that stuff has been installed as the size of drive C: (there is
only one partition on the new computer) has increased by 30 GB that
were transferred.
But, alas, I am locked out to do anything! The only effect was that my
Desktop was now cluttered as my old one!-) All other folders from
drive C: and D: from the old machine also posed no problem.
Trying to switch to another local admin also did not solve the problem
- I cannot get into the D&S folder.
Is there anything I can do? Is this a Vista bug? Where did all the
stuff go to? Could it be that specifying a target user who is usually
working in a domain is not currently connected to this domain?
Can I somehow revert the whole "Easy" Transfer procedure (if I had
only done this manually I would be ready now ...) if there is no
chance for a meaningful migration?

Thanks for any hint in advance!
- Thomas

<> wrote in message
news: ups.com...
> Dear all,
> I had the chuzpe to take the offer and transfer stuff from my old XP
> Professional notebook to a new one with Vista Business using so called
> "EasyTransfer". While the procedure is indeed easy - I used an
> external USB drive to create one huge transfer file including user
> settings for my main account plus a few folders like d:\documents and
> settings (an additional folder I created that is NOT a special folder
> just has the same name as the one on C.
> On the target machine I decided to let all folders from source
> computer's drive D: to be restored on target drive C: as it promised
> to resolve conflicts by renaming folders and files.
> Quite logically it also asked to which user the profile was going to
> copied and I entered my account (which BTW, is a domain user account).
> Well, after one hour I had a sucess message and I was eager to start
> my previously installed Eudora to see all message boxes and accounts
> beng readily installed. Nope!
> Inspecting the folders I could see that not a single applicationdata
> folder or file from the source computer was in place. The Eudora files
> were all as new as after installation.
> Now I save a folder named Documents and Settings (indeed it is the
> German version "Dokumente und Einstellungen").
> I suspect that this folder is the one that was originally located on
> the D: drive of my old machine (as the naming has changed anyway in
> Vista). Now it is getting weird: I tried to get into the folder but
> was effectively rejected from doing so and no action (changing the
> owner although already admin) at all was helpful in being able list
> files.
> I know that stuff has been installed as the size of drive C: (there is
> only one partition on the new computer) has increased by 30 GB that
> were transferred.
> But, alas, I am locked out to do anything! The only effect was that my
> Desktop was now cluttered as my old one!-) All other folders from
> drive C: and D: from the old machine also posed no problem.
> Trying to switch to another local admin also did not solve the problem
> - I cannot get into the D&S folder.
> Is there anything I can do? Is this a Vista bug? Where did all the
> stuff go to? Could it be that specifying a target user who is usually
> working in a domain is not currently connected to this domain?
> Can I somehow revert the whole "Easy" Transfer procedure (if I had
> only done this manually I would be ready now ...) if there is no
> chance for a meaningful migration?
>
> Thanks for any hint in advance!
> - Thomas
>

The "Documents and Settings" folder in Vista is actually a "junction" that
redirects software that is hard-coded to look for the old "Documents and
Settings" folder to the new "Users" folder.

The DaS folder you're seeing isn't actually a folder.

By naming a non-system folder "Documents and Settings" I'm assuming the Easy
Transfer basically got confused and either ignored the folder, or dumped the
files somewhere else that the program considers "safe". Try looking in the
"Users/Public" folder for your files, if not there you're only recourse is
to copy the files manually, and I'd suggest not using folder names that
Windows uses/used for system folders.

Mic