I have a P3 running Windows 98 SE and the ol' lady is about to croak.
I'm looking to purchase a new PC running Windows XP. However, I have a
ton of e-mails in Outlook Express (and a lot of message rules in the
same program), as well as a number of programs (Paint Shop Pro 7,
Norton Anti-Virus 2002--paid for a 2-year subscription to Live Update,
etc..) that I legally purchased online and have no CD for. Aside from
those, I have a bunch of drivers for my digital camera, printer,
scanner, etc... that I do not have the installation CD's for anymore.
How can I transfer all of the above to my new PC?

There are a number of ways of transferring data from one PC to
another.
1. CDROM. If you have access to or can afford to buy a CDROM burner
then you can backup 600MB+ on each CD. Blank CDs are very cheap these
days. I personally use this method to make my own backups every so
often.
2. Via a LAN cable connection. You will need to purchase two network
cards one for each machine and then allowing the XP machine to read
files from your WIN98 machine, transfer your files.
3. USB Drive. This assumes you have a USB port on your Win98 machine
and on the XP machine. Being a new machine the XP machine will have
one but you have to check the Win98 machine. If you buy a USB drive
around 256MB ($US150) then you can transfer 256MB at a time, a bit
slower than the other methods.

As far as your drivers for you digital camera and printer etc, you
will need to find XP drivers as the Win98 drivers will not work. Check
out the websites of the manafactures of these websites and see if they
have XP drivers for you to download. Another thought is to see what
drivers come with XP first and you may find they are already there, at
least the generic drivers that are available from XP will do the job.

I haven't purchased software via the internet before as I like to have
the CD in my hand. Having said that I would see if you can re-download
the software (you have already paid for it so I don't see why not) or
you search your harddisk and see if you can find the install file for
the product. It may be there.

Outlook Express should be using .pst files like Outlook. Search your
computer for all .pst files and copy them over as described above. I'm
not sure how to copy the rules over.

The most important thing I would recommend is that you don't sell your
Win98 machine or wipe the drive until you are happy that you have
everything copied over. Sometimes files don't get copied properly and
I would hate to think you have copied something when in fact you
didn't.

Good luck.
Darren.

When you purchased Paint Shop Pro 7 they will have emailed you an
unlock key, which you should have kept on record. If it's still in
your email inbox it's probably from:

Unlock@jasc.com

When you downloaded the programme it will have originally arrived as a
file called psp702eve.exe (the number may vary) which probably was put
in your My Download Files folder. Unless you deleted this file after
installation it is probably still there. Copy it to CD, and reinstall
the programme on your new computer, then use the same unlock key code
to verify it.

If you don't still have the original downloaded files you can download
them again from JASC, or see if you can find a copy on a magazine
cover disc.

If the unlock key doesn't work a second time, email JASC :

Kari Langfeld
International Customer Service Representative 
Jasc Software, Inc. 
7905 Fuller Road 
Eden Prairie, MN 55344 
========================= 
Phone: 1-800-622-2793
(952) 930-9800
Fax: (952) 930-9172 
Email: klangfeld@jasc.com <mailto:klangfeld@jasc.com> 
Website: http://www.jasc.com <http://www.jasc.com>

I've had good success with large-scale file transfers using FastLynx
software from Sewell Development. There are various FastLynx
connection options available, with USB being the fastest if you have
USB ports available on both machines. There are also serial and
parallel cabling options available.

Here is Sewell's website if you want to take a look at their
offerings: http://www.sewelldev.com

traderaider...

Why not just slave your old WIN98 harddrive in your new machine?
Though WIN98 will be in the FAT32 format, and WIN XP will be in
NTFS format, WIN XP can still read the files in FAT32 format, and
you can copy files, at your leisure, from one drive to another,
or access them for any purposes that arise. I routinely do this
when upgrading, and when I'm done with the previous version, I 
format the drive and use it for storage or give it away.

If you need help with how to do this, let me know.

If this suits your needs, let me know and I'll post it as a
formal answer.

sublime1-ga

Few thoughts here:

Drivers and system stuff:
you'll need XP versions, usually either built into XP or downloaded
from the manufacturer's websites.

Applications and Programs:
these have to be installed on the new computer. They can't just be
moved from one to the other. For downloaded programs, you should be
able to redownload and install, provided you still have the serial
number that you bought. You'll need to contact each company for
specific information.

Email, documents, and settings:
Once you have all of your programs installed on the Windows XP
computer, you can use something called "Files and Settings Transfer
Wizard" to move your data and settings over.

Insert your Windows XP CD into the 98 system and a menu will open, in
the other options area, you can run this wizard. You'll have to select
which programs and what types of data to move, including your
documents folders and your email/address book.

Once it gathers all of the info it needs, it creates a file with all
the info. Copy that file to the new computer by network or by cd
burner, and then run the wizard on the XP system.  tell it you're
importing the data, and tell it where the file is. Then let it do it's
think.

Sparky4ca