Adapted from Ed Bott's Your New PC: Seven Easy Steps to Help You Get Started!

When employees leave a company or transfer to another department, you might need to transfer important documents, spreadsheets, databases, and other data from the departing employees' computers. The task of moving files and computer settings can be incredibly simple, or it can be a major production that lasts for hours.

Before you invest a lot of time and energy in this task, identify what you need to move. Some transfer options work best if you are moving only files. Another option, the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, works well if you need to transfer certain computer settings as well as files.

Here are a few options for transferring important data. You cannot use any of these options to copy your computer settings, such as desktop colors, fonts, and wallpaper.

• Copy files by using removable media   If you have a small number of files that don't occupy a lot of space, you can copy them to removable media, such as floppy disks, Zip disks, or CDs that you burn with a CD-R drive. You can then copy the contents of those disks to a new computer.
• Copy files over a network   If your office has a network connection, you can transfer files to a new computer over the network. Start Microsoft Windows Explorer on the old computer, and organize into one folder all of the files that you want to transfer. Then connect to the Shared Documents folder on the new computer, and copy the folder. After you move the folder, you can reorganize the files that it contains on the new computer.
• Use a backup program   If a departing employee used a dedicated backup program to save copies of data files, you can install that program on a new computer, and then re-create the backup files.

Using the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard

If you need to transfer critical business files as well as computer settings to another computer, consider using the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. This free utility is included with all versions of Microsoft Windows XP. You can use the wizard to transfer data files, most custom Windows settings, and preferences for some programs.

To work with the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, do the following:

1. Identify data   Identify the files and other data that you need to transfer from the departing employee's computer. Knowing what to move from one computer to another helps you instruct the wizard.
2. Run the wizard on the departing employee's computer   You can use the wizard to specify that you want only certain types of settings and files to be transferred. You can also tell the wizard to search for files that are stored only in specific locations.

   The wizard scans the hard disk for any files that appear to be data files, regardless of where they're stored. It then goes through the Windows registry and collects any customized settings for Windows and for certain other programs. After the wizard scans the computer, it makes a list of all the settings and files that you chose, and then gathers the contents of that list for transferring.

3. Transfer files   You can transfer files over a network, or you can save the files to an intermediate storage location such as a shared network folder, an external hard disk, or a USB flash memory keydrive. If you transfer files to a new computer, the wizard transfers the files to a location that matches where they were on the old computer. The wizard adds any custom settings that it finds to the Windows registry.

The biggest drawback of the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard is what it doesn't do. It doesn't transfer installed programs from the old computer to a new one; you have to reinstall every program on the new computer. For security reasons, the wizard doesn't transfer any passwords that are saved on the old computer, except for some Web page logon information that is stored in browser cookies.

The wizard also might transfer more than you want, especially if the old computer contains files created by programs that are no longer used. If the old computer has a large collection of digital music, picture, or video files, the transfer can take a very long time.

Choose the transfer method that is best for your business so that you can protect your company's critical information during employee transitions.

About the author   Ed Bott is an award-winning journalist and a former writer and editor for PC World and PC Computing. One of the most recognized voices in the computing world, he is a two-time winner of the Jesse H. Neal Editorial Achievement Award and a three-time winner of the Computer Press Award. This article is adapted from Ed Bott's Your New PC: Seven Easy Steps to Help You Get Started! (2005), which is available from Microsoft Learning.