INTERACT FORUM

More => Old Versions => Media Center 15 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: warrence on April 04, 2011, 06:00:00 am

Title: Migration from Vista to Win7 or Where are the configuration files?
Post by: warrence on April 04, 2011, 06:00:00 am

Hi,

I recently had to replace my Windows Vista installation by Windows 7. Is there a way to restore the exact same settings I chose for Media Center 15 on Vista to the new installation on Win7? I still have the old files from my Vista installation, e.g. the "J River" directory in "AppData\Roaming\", but it would be difficult to boot it again. I found "Machine Settings.ini" and "User Settings.ini" in "AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 15\Library Backups\MC Library Backup (Default - 2011-01-17).zip\Settings\", which look like something, but I cannot figure out where to put them as they are in "Backups", and the "Library" directory itself is missing those ini files.

I don't need the complete library backup, as a lot of the old paths changed. I'm not sure but IIRC Media Center could handle the changed paths(?).

Thanks in advance!

Title: Re: Migration from Vista to Win7 or Where are the configuration files?
Post by: JimH on April 04, 2011, 06:43:33 am

Moving registry settings may be risky.

Our wiki has an article on "Moving Files".

You can back up in MC15 and restore in MC16 to get most settings.

Title: Re: Migration from Vista to Win7 or Where are the configuration files?
Post by: warrence on April 04, 2011, 07:33:28 am

So the settings of MC are stored in the registry? I won't mess with that, then. That sucks btw. Why not store them in config files somewhere in the user directory? It's hard ("hard" in the sense that I have no idea if this is even possible) to access the registry of a Windows system that refuses to boot.

If I understand you right it would have been a good idea to back up the settings in MC 15 on Vista prior to installing Win7. Are the program settings stored together with the library? So that I have to back up the old library and get the other settings this way, too?

Thank you so far.

Title: Re: Migration from Vista to Win7 or Where are the configuration files?
Post by: Alex B on April 04, 2011, 08:12:37 am

In MC15 and MC16 you can restore a library from a backup file and set it to restore only the settings.

File > Restore Library...

Uncheck: Restore library and playlists
Check: Restore settings

However, you may want to restore also the library database because it contains all view customization, "date imported" values, playback statistics, custom library fields, smartlists, static playlists and auto-import configuration -- i.e. anything that is library specific and can change when a different library is loaded.

If only some drive letters and/or base folders have changed you may be able to easily fix the file paths with the Rename, Move, & Copy Files tool. You can find links to my instructions here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=63361.msg423715#msg423715

If you really don't care about the old file data, you can still restore the library database and after that remove all old files just to get the customized views, library fields and smartlists in.

Title: Re: Migration from Vista to Win7 or Where are the configuration files?
Post by: warrence on April 04, 2011, 10:56:16 am

Oh, okay, I understand! Thank you very much for this. This helps a lot!  :)

Best regards.