Five steps to better new PC

You can find tools to automate this process somewhat. Microsoft's built-in Windows Easy Transfer tool does a good enough job however doesn't necessarily transfer everything you want; other third-party tools are similar. These aren't bad choices for moving data and settings from an old PC to a new one, yet I don't like them for two reasons: First, if the data is that important, you should be backing it up, not just switching it from one point of failure to another. Second, none of these tools in effect grab everything you want them to get, so you end up manually transferring stuff all the same.

2. Straightway, turn to your documents. If you have been saving everything to the My Documents folder in your user directory, your job is easy. If not, you'll have to hunt around in Windows Explorer and the Desktop to find every important document and copy it to the external hard drive.