Moving to a new computer--How

[pallidin]

I have all my photos on an external HDD. I have installed PSE4 on the new computer and now want to get my catalogs transferred. (Don't need to transfer pics since they are on an external drive--which I will attach to the new PC.) I also have both PC's and the external HDD on a small office network.

Will it work to just save the catalogs (2 of them), to a file and then picK them up across the net and open them on the new installation of PSE4? Will I encounter any problems?:confused:

[johnrellis]

PSE 4 records the locations of photos in its catalog using drive letters. So as long as you arrange that the external hard drive containing your photos has the same drive letter on the new computer as the old, you can move the catalog files to the new computer and they should work fine.

Note that you can override the drive-letter assignments made by Windows -- see this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844

This article is for Windows XP, but I think Vista is similar.

I'd recommend storing the catalog on a local hard drive on the new computer, not on the external drive or over the network. The local drive will generally be faster than an external drive or a network drive, and the catalog will perform better.

Make sure you have a backup of the catalog files before you move them!

[pallidin]

Thanks John for the reafirming reply. Also for the reference to drive letter assignments. I had been looking for that reference--just in case.
When you mention "backing up the Catalog" that is different than just saving it. Backing up the catalog also copies ALL the pictures into the backup--doesn't it?

[johnrellis]

What I meant was simply to make a copy of the catalog .psa file using Windows Explorer, just to be safe. (You're right that a backup made by PSE includes all the photos.) See this article for where the .psa file might be stored on your computer:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402592&sliceId=1