Transferring data?

[Buckman]

I have a useless Dell laptop and an older Asus. The Dell has to be rated as one of the worst purchases I have made in recent times. I want to transfer all my data from the Dell to the Asus i.e. Word and Excel documents. Both laptops have USB connections. I also want to dump MS 365 and revert back to MS Office 2007, but I need a number of emails in folders on the Outlook 365 plus I have documents saved in the Office 365 format..

Can someone please advise the best way forward as I am a bit illiterate when it comes to computer stuff like this. Thanks.

 

[Martin_E]

If you have windows and office 365 then you can set up/copy the data from your one drive

 

[Jcloughie]

The easy answer is to open One Drive under your account name and save everything there. Your data will then be available wherever you want it.

But to avoid the cloud, save your data to a USB drive or SD card. Save it in a common format. eg, spreadsheets as Excel. Documents as Word.

John

 

[audiorob]

Depends a bit on how tidy you keep your current hard drive. First have a spring clean then create folders with titles of your choosing. Once the documents , spreadsheets etc are in folders you can copy the whole folder onto a USB stick ready for transfer to the new drive. Of course you will need discs and serial numbers for any programmes you wish to install on the new laptop. If you wish to update your Office then google MS Office 2021 and you will find some cheap suppliers including on Amazon. If moving to Windows 11 be aware that drivers are not available for all printers so if unlucky that will need replacement too!

 

[Buckman]

I have numerous issues on my supposedly high spec Dell laptop which is not even 3 years old. On checking for solutions I noticed that all seem to be common issues on Dell laptops. Most seem to start happening after the 1 st year when the warranty expired and I did not want to take out their "extended" warranty.

Also as I am not overjoyed with MS 365 I want to revert back to my 2007 version of Office and install 2007 on my old 7 year old Asus laptop and start using the Asus laptop instead of the Dell even though it is a bit slower. The 2007 Office seems to be much better to use than the Office 365!

The 365 Word will not open Word documents in Explorer and I need to open Word first and then use Word to search for the file. No issue with Excel files as can open them directly in Explorer. The 365 Outlook recently decided it will not send email to Gmail accounts although no issue receiving them. It was fine until a few updates ago!

The main issues on the Dell laptop is some of the buttons that you use frequently do not work any longer i.e. scroll down amongst others. The laptop has to go on record as the worst laptop I have ever purchased and it is a top spec one and was not cheap!

 

[Sam Vimes]

This is not something that's easy to help with remotely since so much will depend on what you've been doing and how you've organised your data. If you can pop up to Skye this afternoon I'll sort it out for you.

In a previous thread I suggested a way in which you could backup your emails by backing up the Outlook PST file which contains all of them. On the other machine you could then use this one to replace the default one created by your newly installed email program.

If you haven't messed around with any default file locations where your documents are saved then these will be in your User Documents folder.

I can understand the attraction of going back to Office 2007 but given that its 17 years old and not supported anymore I'd really considered getting a newer copy like Office 2021 which is not subscription based.

If you're going to ditch MS365 and not use your MS Account then using Onedrive isn't going to be an option. Also if you're going back to a 7 year old machine then Windows 11 is unlikely to be an option either.

 

[otherclive]

When I went from one MAC to a later one my photos stored on the machines drive couldn’t be opened by the editing suite as the computer operating system had gone from 32 bit to 64 bit also several applications had to be binned too. Going back on technolgy seems a big risk to me, especially given the time difference involved.

 

[DeauxChevaux]

Why not install the free Libre Office on the computer you want to use. It's very much like the old office in layout but very much more capable and will handle many different formats of documents allowing you to save them in any format even PDF!

 

[Buckman]

If you're going to ditch MS365 and not use your MS Account then using Onedrive isn't going to be an option. Also if you're going back to a 7 year old machine then Windows 11 is unlikely to be an option either.

Thanks for the useful info. I only require Outlook, Word and Excel so not the full package.

 

[Sam Vimes]

If you want those then you'll get the full package anyway. It doesn't mean you have to use the other stuff that comes with it.

 

[RogerL]

Why not install the free Libre Office on the computer you want to use. It's very much like the old office in layout but very much more capable and will handle many different formats of documents allowing you to save them in any format even PDF!

+1 for Libre Office - it does everything I need.

 

[Buckman]

+1 for Libre Office - it does everything I need.

Maybe time to switch to Libre and Thunderbird?

 

[Jcloughie]

Maybe time to switch to Libre and Thunderbird?

Sounds good. I have not used Thunderbird, but it has a good name and has been around forever. My feeling is that many email clients are directed toward business, and therefore become over complex for home use.

This article makes some suggestions and explains the advantages of cloud-based managers and stand-alone clients.

John

 

[Buckman]

Sounds good. I have not used Thunderbird, but it has a good name and has been around forever. My feeling is that many email clients are directed toward business, and therefore become over complex for home use.

This article makes some suggestions and explains the advantages of cloud-based managers and stand-alone clients.

John

Thanks I read that article a while back, but I have no interest in anything linked to Cloud as I am old fashion, security conscious and don't trust it. I do not have any banking apps on either of our Smartphones and never seen the need. What is mine stays mine on my laptop. LOL!

 

[Sam Vimes]

Thunderbird and Libre Office are ok - it just depends if you're prepared to learn how to use something that's different.

I'm not a cloud based fan either - keep everything local and backed up.

 

[RogerL]

Thunderbird and Libre Office are ok - it just depends if you're prepared to learn how to use something that's different.

I'm not a cloud based fan either - keep everything local and backed up.

Libre Office is little different to Office for spreadsheets and word documents.

 

[Buckman]

Learning how to set up and use Thunderbird will be a challenge and bit of fun as long as I can access my old emails transferred from Outlook.

My thoughts were not load MS Office 2007 at all onto the Asus and set up Thunderbird manually to prevent it grabbing info from Outlook 365. I don;t want it to block sending Gmail out of Thunderbird which is what Outlook 365 is doing at present.

 

[Sam Vimes]

If you install Thunderbird it will allow you to import everything from Outlook, which is what I'd have thought you want. So I'm not sure why you want to prevent it from 'grabbing' stuff from your current Outlook program if it's going to replace it.

You'll also be able to setup your Gmail accounts in it.

I don't understand why you say your current Outlook program is blocking Gmail as it works ok for me for multiple different emails accounts. So perhaps it's just a configuration problem.

 

[Buckman]

If you install Thunderbird it will allow you to import everything from Outlook, which is what I'd have thought you want. So I'm not sure why you want to prevent it from 'grabbing' stuff from your current Outlook program if it's going to replace it.

You'll also be able to setup your Gmail accounts in it.

I don't understand why you say your current Outlook program is blocking Gmail as it works ok for me for multiple different emails accounts. So perhaps it's just a configuration problem.

The concern here is that Outlook for some reason is blocking Gmail from being sent and I don't want that to happen with Thunderbird in case it transfers the problem.

 

[Sam Vimes]

I think the chances of that happening are small.

Either way before you embark on changing your email program, and especially since you configure it for POP protocol, is to back up all your data and specifically your C:/User folders.

As you're going to be using a POP protocol it's not wise to have two or more email programs running at the same time as your emails may well get split between them. So you need to consider how you're going to make the switch and retain all your Outlook data.

This is what makes IMAP protocols more useful.....you can have as many email clients running at the same time and they'll all see the same data.

 

[Buckman]

I think the chances of that happening are small.

Either way before you embark on changing your email program, and especially since you configure it for POP protocol, is to back up all your data and specifically your C:/User folders.

As you're going to be using a POP protocol it's not wise to have two or more email programs running at the same time as your emails may well get split between them. So you need to consider how you're going to make the switch and retain all your Outlook data.

This is what makes IMAP protocols more useful.....you can have as many email clients running at the same time and they'll all see the same data.

Libre Office and Thunderbird will be on two different laptops. The Asus hard disk was formatted and has seen no use since.

 

[Jcloughie]

Thanks I read that article a while back, but I have no interest in anything linked to Cloud as I am old fashion, security conscious and don't trust it. I do not have any banking apps on either of our Smartphones and never seen the need. What is mine stays mine on my laptop. LOL!

I fully understand you not wanting cloud-based stuff, but the link I posted to you differentiated cloud-based and personal-based email. I thought it would help you to choose the most suitable for you. It was not trying to tempt you in any direction.

Personally, I have no problem with cloud-based data, after all, most data needs to travel through the ether in order to reach your storage area anyway. But I can fully understand others' hesitance to embrace the cloud.

The clouds are taking over. Many do not understand or appreciate that they are using a cloud. Eg, 365, or Gmail. For example.

In fact, I can't think of an email system which is not cloud-based. Perhaps the optimal option for you is to discover how you can save emails locally in order to archive them, but they will remain on the cloud unless you access them there and manually delete them.

With personal data, ie. Pictures, Word or Excel documents. Saving them locally is much easier so long as the software is designed to work that way. A lot of new software uses clouds without making that clear to the end user. I think they should be much clearer. But that is the direction of travel.

John

PS, correction. Email may only be considered as cloud-based if it includes webmail. (I don't know). Looking at your Pobox account, I don't think your account does. And if it does not, then surely your emails are already saved locally. But nevertheless, email has to travel from A to B.

It’s a minefield for sure.

 

[Buckman]

Thanks John and I appreciated the link to update the brain. Thunderbird is not Cloud orientated.

 

[Sam Vimes]

Outlook, Thunderbird and most email clients run locally...they are not cloud based. Depending on the email protocol you use - POP or IMAP - your emails will be downloaded to your own machine in the case of POP, or left on the cloud server in the case of IMAP.

It's true though that even with POP the emails will reside in the cloud until you download them by running your email client. But that's not the same as cloud based email services.

(There may be an exception in some POP protocols where you can opt to not delete the emails after you've downloaded them but I don't see the point of that)

Even if you have two different machines with your email clients set to POP on each, you will split emails between whatever machine your currently running.

 

[Jcloughie]

Thanks John and I appreciated the link to update the brain. Thunderbird is not Cloud orientated.

Thunderbird is only a client to manage emails once they have landed. So yes it is not cloud based. It is your email provider that might be a concern. I see that Thunderbird has not been supported by Mozilla since 2012.

John