[Solved] Old PC to New PC

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TominDenver
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Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2018 10:55 pm

[Solved] Old PC to New PC

Post by TominDenver »

I just used Laplink's PCMover product to move all data, programs, settings, etc. from the old laptop to a new laptop. I'm now verifying that everything looks the same on my new laptop. OpenOffice 4.1.3 transferred OK, and I see that 4.1.5 is available. My problem on my new laptop is that the data files (documents like .odt) are still named the same from my old computer and Open Office can't properly reference and display them on my new laptop. Do all the old, named files need to be renamed, en mass, to file names on this new laptop?
Last edited by Hagar Delest on Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: tagged [Solved].
OpenOffice 4.1.3 on Windows 10
Bill
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Re: Old PC to New PC

Post by Bill »

I don't understand what you mean by "properly reference and display them". No file names should be changed when data files are copied from one computer to another. Are you getting an error message when you try to open a file?
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
TominDenver
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Re: Old PC to New PC

Post by TominDenver »

Yes, the error references the file name and the error says it does not exist.
OpenOffice 4.1.3 on Windows 10
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RoryOF
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Re: Old PC to New PC

Post by RoryOF »

Then you should use the system File search to attempt to locate the file(s). If you find them,either doiuble click in turn on each one and OO should open them (ask if it doesn't) or start OpenOffice, use /File /Open and the navigation buttons to move to the location of the file you have found and let OO open it. Doing either of these methods will list the current file in OO's /File /Recent Documents and they should thereafter open by clicking on the entry in Recent Documents.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
TominDenver
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Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2018 10:55 pm

Re: Old PC to New PC

Post by TominDenver »

Thank you. I will try your suggestions and try to get back to the Forum tomorrow January 2.
OpenOffice 4.1.3 on Windows 10
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LilZebra
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Re: Old PC to New PC

Post by LilZebra »

TomInDenver, it could be that on the newer PC a new OpenOffice profile was created and that the older one from the older PC was not sent over.

Saying that, I have a question about my profile. I see in:

Tools > Options > Paths

that there is still a (relevant) folder called '4'. This was not changed to '5' or '6' when I moved to those versions of LO.
LibreOffice 6.1.3.2 (Linux Fedora 29 on x86_64) with 'Notebookbar'
OpenOffice.org since 2002-12. LibreOffice user since 2013-current.
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TominDenver
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Re: Old PC to New PC

Post by TominDenver »

Hello and thank you again for your suggestions.

The good news is that all the OO documents from my old computer copied successfully to my new computer. They were just changed to a different path name on my new computer.

Here is what I discovered by looking at the file paths.

My old computer file path was, e.g., C:\Users\MyOldComputerName\same\same\same, etc.
My new computer file path is: C:\Users\MyNewComputerName\same\same\same\, etc.

I can click on the new computer file path name and OO opens up the file for editing. Any newly edited document is saved with MyNewComputerName path, as expected. Any new OO document I create is saved with the MyNewComputerName path, as expected.

I don't need to go any further than this discovery. I now know that any old document displayed using the MyOldComputerName path was converted to MyNewComputerName path.

Here what I think the condition was/is: It appears that the OO “Recent Document” list path names were the ONLY ones not changed, and ONLY in that particular list. The actual file path name in the new computer file directory was correctly renamed to MyNewComputerName. OpenOffice maintained the old MyOldComputerName in the path names of about a dozen documents. No wonder OO couldn't open a file whose path name didn't exist on my new computer. I would guess that OO designers created a separate table into which the document paths were copied for recent documents (for easy retrieval by the user) and that the path names were not changed during the data transfer from old to new computer. Anyway, just a guess from a non-designer. Newly created (and newly saved old) documents correctly maintain the MyNewComputerName in their paths' name, as expected.

Bottom line: Always learning. And, I'm good to go. Thank you, Forum.
OpenOffice 4.1.3 on Windows 10
Bill
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Re: [Solved] Old PC to New PC

Post by Bill »

The recent documents pathnames are stored by AOO in a text file. Those pathnames will always become invalid if the text file is moved to a different computer where any element of the path part of the pathname is different.

The File > Open dialog in Windows has a Search box. If Windows Search has completed the initial indexing of files, then you can just type the file name (not the pathname) in the Search box to find a file.
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
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