5 Easy Steps to Prepare for Your New Computer Install

Once upon a time, life was easy. We owned things. Music. Movies. Video games. They were all things bought in actual, physical stores and taken home and placed on actual, physical shelves. Even software was something you could hold in your hands. It arrived on disks of various shapes and sizes and it was yours forever and ever, so long as you had the serial key. When it was time to buy a new computer, you simply inserted disk #1 and double-clicked the setup.exe file and installed your software just as you had before. It was no more difficult than inserting a well-worn copy of Forest Gump into a VCR and pressing play.

But things are different today. We purchase software directly from the developer. Instead of a box of disks, we receive an email with a link. The serial key is included in the email, safe and sound for now. The installation file is in your Downloads folder, safe and sound for now. And the installation goes well and the experience is efficient. And we are happy.

Then the years pass and our trusty, reliable computer comes due for an upgrade. We agonize briefly over specs and make a fleeting attempt to finally understand the difference between dual-core this and quad-core that. But we don’t really care. We make our purchase and feel no excitement, only dread. For we know what comes next.

I recently replaced not one, but two computers. Both were holdovers from 2009 that I placed in storage in early 2014 and no longer met the minimum technical requirements for my job as a writer of video game strategy guides (I work on my fiction with the cracked, pint-sized ultrabook I took around the world). And as I tracked down serial keys from accounts linked to email addresses I no longer used (not fun!) and worked to get all of the software I use installed on the first of my new computers, I realized there was a way to make this all much easier. And I was right! When time came to purchase a new laptop last week in preparation for an upcoming two-week business trip to Vancouver, I not only had it completely set up within two hours, but the process was effortless.

Whether or not you’re in the market for a new computer doesn’t matter. Organizing your software and files is just a good habit to get into. Here are some tips… but first some caveats.

1) I’m a Windows user. I’m sure it’s not a whole lot different for you Mac users, but I don’t know what the equivalent of the Downloads folder is called on Macs.

2) I know there are programs out there that allow you to essentially clone one computer onto a new one. I don’t like that approach. When I have a new computer, the last thing I want to do is inject it with all of the clutter, nervous ticks, and insecurities my old one had developed over the years. I prefer to start with a clean slate and install only what is necessary.

1) Sort and Rename Your Downloads

The first thing you should do is crack open your Downloads folder and take some time to root through it and place all of your software downloads into their own sub-folder (this is also a good time to delete most of the images and random PDFs that you don’t actually need to save). Call it something snappy like “Software Downloads” and then right-click-rename those individual files something simpler, such as the program’s name and the version number.

Some software, particularly Adobe products, will have two download files per program, with differing extensions. One acts as an unlocking key. You can’t install the program without both files so sort your files by date and look at the time stamp of your downloaded file if you’re unsure. Make sure you drag both files into your new Software Downloads folder if they are from the same company and downloaded within minutes of one another.

2) Collecting the Serial Keys

This part might take some time if you didn’t plan ahead. You’re going to need those serial keys to reinstall many of your programs. Go through your email receipts and try to locate the purchase email for each and every program you have in your Software Downloads folder. Make sure they have the serial key in the email. If you’re using Gmail or another web-based email service, create a folder in your inbox for “Software Receipts” and drag them all into that folder. If you’re using something like Outlook, then go ahead and save those individual emails to your Software Downloads folder where the programs are. Or, if you prefer, just create a spreadsheet with the program’s name in one column and the serial key in another. Copy an paste it in to make sure you don’t make any mistakes. Now save that spreadsheet to your Software Downloads folder. You don’t have to have everything in one place, but it does make it easier.

If you don’t have the purchase email for a program you use, log onto the company’s website and go through your orders to try and track down your purchase history. Some companies, like Microsoft and Adobe, make this very easy and not only have your purchase history but also have links and serial numbers for you to access should you need to re-download older software. Others, like ACDSee, a photo-management tool I use, only allow you a certain number of months to download the software, after which time they will try to get you to buy the newer version. This is why it’s important to save those downloaded programs — you never know when the company is going to deactivate the download link. Fortunately, and to their credit, I sent ACDSee a polite email explaining my situation and asked them to temporarily reactivate my download link for ACDSee Pro 9, which they did.

Remember, in today’s world, we own nothing. We merely rent for as long as we can figure out a way to keep a company from taking things back from us.

3) Clouds and Thumb-Drives

Since you never know exactly when your computer might need to be replaced — and whether or not your existing one will be working when that times comes — you should now copy everything in this Software Downloads folder onto a USB drive and duplicate it to Dropbox or whicever cloud-storage program you prefer. You may even have the Dropbox install files in that Software Downloads folder. That’s good! It will be faster to install from the USB drive when setting up your new computer (as opposed to waiting for everything to sync from a fresh Dropbox install) but having everything in the cloud also guards you against losing that USB drive and it can come in handy should you ever need to reinstall a program on a laptop while the USB drive is sleeping soundly back home in your sock drawer.

4) Sync Your Windows and Chrome Settings

Your mileage may vary, but if you’re using Windows 10 and Google Chrome for your browser, then make sure you are logged in to both Microsoft’s platform and Google’s so that you can sync your settings. If you’re an Android user then you likely already know how wonderful it is to have all of your Google content and Chrome settings automatically sync’d between your phone and computer, but I had no idea Microsoft was now making this possible with operating system settings.

I set up my new laptop the other day and logged into Microsoft through the sign-in screen on Windows 10. The computer asked me to wait for a moment while it did something. I looked away, back to my desktop PC to busy myself with some reading. When I turned back, I saw that my just-out-of-the-box laptop not only had the same wallpaper as my desktop, but it had configured the Task Bar and icons just how I like it (auto-hidden on the right-hand edge of the screen which is not typical).

5) Prioritize Your Installs

Congratulations on your new computer purchase, now you get the fun of getting it set up just the way you’re used to. And if you followed the tips above, this is going to take hours less than you might think. Nevertheless, there’s still a method to the madness. Here’s a list of all of the programs that I just installed on my new computers, in the order I installed them, with some notes.

Google Chrome: My first step was to sync my browser with my Google account.

Dropbox: I wanted all of my Dropbox files downloading to my new laptop while I was busy installing everything else. PS: Copy your oft-used files to Dropbox, everything else to a thumb-drive.

Spotify: Might as well have some tunes playing while you work.

Microsoft Office: I purchased an Office 365 subscription earlier this year which includes installs on up to 5 computers.

Photoshop Elements: So long as you have your Adobe ID login credentials, you’ll have access to your old Adobe software.

Adobe Acrobat: My old copy of Acrobat X still does everything I need it to and can be re-downloaded at will with my Adobe ID.

Scrivener: Might need to wait for Dropbox to finish syncing in order to use it, but it had to be installed.

ACDSee: Make sure to save any program files you download as ACDSee deactivates the download link after several months.

GeForce Experience: Make sure your Geforce drivers are up to date, if applicable.

Steam: For the games, silly.

ElGato HD Capture: For capturing video game footage.

Garmin Express: For syncing my GPS devices with Strava.

ExtractNow: Not everybody uses .zip files and ExtractNow is free and can open anything.

FileZilla: My publisher has moved away from FTP (in favor of Box) but it still pays to have a FTP client handy.

Thanks to a little bit of planning ahead, I had my new laptop set up with clean installs of every program I use and all of my files and preferred settings in the time it took for Dropbox to finish syncing. The headache of tracking down serial numbers and re-downloading programs was negated. I merely double-clicked a dozen or so files, copied-and-pasted serial keys into a corresponding number of forms, and then arranged the icons as I like them. Which brings me to…

Miscellaneous Extras

I like a clean desktop experience and prefer to have all of my programs in the Quick Launch portion of the Task Bar. This is a little trickier with Windows 10, as I found out. If you’re upgrading directly from the classic Windows 7 experience to newfangled Windows 10, then here’s a couple of tips you might find useful.

1) Unpin everything from the Start Menu. In fact, go ahead and uninstall most of the junk there. Unless you really want all of those Live Apps running, get rid of them. The only things I like to have pinned to the Start Menu are accessory apps like Snipping Tool, Calculator, Notepad and Sticky Notes. Things I use, but not enough to warrant a place in the Quick Launch.

2) This link will instruct you step-by-step in setting up the Quick Launch on the Task Bar. I don’t want to have to first go to the Start Menu to launch pinned apps. I want them all in miniature on the Quick Launch. Just as I’ve had since Windows 98. That link shows you how.

3) You can’t easily drag-and-drop links to the Quick Launch anymore. Because, errm, change. Well, you can, but it often ends up as a dead shortcut link. Fortunately, you can use the right-click “Send To” function to send any program to the Quick Launch. This article explains how to set this up. It’s a little tricky, but you only have to do it once. And it works perfectly.

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