Import Favorites - Not

Via long distance, I'm trying to help my mother-in-law with a new Vista computer
she got from Dell. It came out of the box and seems to work.

Now the thing is that she has a CD someone made of her personal files from her
old system that died and she'd like to load those "Favorites" onto her new
system. Sounds easy doesn't it?

Initially I asked her to to open up IE and click to import the favorites from a
file. Well, apparently IE expects all the favorites to be wrapped up in one
html file, rather than the thousand individual files it normally stores
internally, and which are on her backup CD.

Ok, plan "B". I figured we'd just do a copy/paste from the E: CD drive onto the
appropriate location on her C: hard drive. So I asked her to click on
Start/Computer and it shows the top level directory listing as desired. And she
can go look at the E: drive which has a "Favorites" folder as expected. But
when I ask her to look at the C: drive to locate the right "User" subdirectory
she tells me that she can't see any file listings at all. It's just blank when
she clicks on C:, so of course we're stymied. She also has a logical D: drive
which is named "Backup" or some such.

So my question is, does Vista out of the box somehow hide all its files? What
does one have to do to get around this? I presume it's something simple going
on, but not being able to see her computer I can't tell her what to do. On my
HP Vista machine, I don't see this problem.

And finally, am I correct to assume that I can't control her desktop remotely
from my computer which is Vista Home Premium? That would simplify a lot of
problems if I could.

Thanks.

Bill

Dave-UK wrote:
>
> "Bill Martin" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Via long distance, I'm trying to help my mother-in-law with a new
>> Vista computer she got from Dell. It came out of the box and seems to
>> work.
>>
>> Now the thing is that she has a CD someone made of her personal files
>> from her old system that died and she'd like to load those "Favorites"
>> onto her new system. Sounds easy doesn't it?
>>
>> Initially I asked her to to open up IE and click to import the
>> favorites from a file. Well, apparently IE expects all the favorites
>> to be wrapped up in one html file, rather than the thousand individual
>> files it normally stores internally, and which are on her backup CD.
>>
>> Ok, plan "B". I figured we'd just do a copy/paste from the E: CD
>> drive onto the appropriate location on her C: hard drive. So I asked
>> her to click on Start/Computer and it shows the top level directory
>> listing as desired. And she can go look at the E: drive which has a
>> "Favorites" folder as expected. But when I ask her to look at the C:
>> drive to locate the right "User" subdirectory she tells me that she
>> can't see any file listings at all. It's just blank when she clicks
>> on C:, so of course we're stymied. She also has a logical D: drive
>> which is named "Backup" or some such.
>>
>> So my question is, does Vista out of the box somehow hide all its
>> files? What does one have to do to get around this? I presume it's
>> something simple going on, but not being able to see her computer I
>> can't tell her what to do. On my HP Vista machine, I don't see this
>> problem.
>>
>> And finally, am I correct to assume that I can't control her desktop
>> remotely from my computer which is Vista Home Premium? That would
>> simplify a lot of problems if I could.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Bill
>
>
> Save yourself a lot of hassle and use TeamViewer.
> It's free for personal use.
>
> http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx
>
> You download and install the full version - marked on the website as '
> Start Full Version -It's Free! '
> Your mother-in-law downloads the client exe - marked on the website as '
> Join a Session '.
> The client exe does not install any files, it is just run from the Desktop.
> Once you are connected you can operate her desktop from your machine.

---------------------------------

You were spot on! Once I could see her screen, we had no problems getting her
set up.

Thanks for the help Dave.

Bill