The Netscape Unofficial FAQ

Safely Moving Communicator and Profiles to Another Location

Applies to: Communicator 4.x
Operating Systems: Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT.

Problem Symptoms: How can I move Communicator and/or my user profiles to a different location or a different computer?

Solutions: If you need to move the location where Communicator and/or your user profiles are installed, perhaps due to disk space constraints, you need to be careful in moving the files to preserve functionality. The below procedures will outline safe methods for moving Communicator only, Communicator and the user profiles, and the user profiles only. Be sure to make backup copies of everything you will be moving before beginning. The information below pertains to 32-bit versions of Netscape Communicator running on either Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.0, and assumes that you have good working knowledge of text file editing and moving of files.

MOVING COMMUNICATOR ONLY

If you only want to move the Communicator program files but keep the user profiles in their current location:

  1. Uninstall Communicator.
  2. Reinstall Communicator to the new location. Do not start Netscape after rebooting. Using Windows Explorer or a DOS prompt, move the contents of your old plugins directory to the plugins directory in the new location. Do not overwrite any files if asked. (If moving the files to a different computer, use a backup tape, direct cable or network connection, or disks to perform this step.) Your existing user profiles will be available when you start up the newly moved Netscape.

MOVING COMMUNICATOR AND/OR USER PROFILES

If you want to move both Communicator and your user profiles, or just your user profiles, to a new location on your hard drive (or another hard drive or network drive), follow the below instructions carefully.

NOTE: if you want to only move your user profiles, skip steps 2 and 3. Be sure to make backups of your user profile directories before beginning.

  1. From the User Profile Manager, delete all profiles. This will not delete any files but removes record of the profiles from the registry. To access the User Profile Manager on most systems, exit Netscape then click Start | Programs | Netscape Communicator | Utilities | User Profile Manager.
  2. Uninstall Communicator. (Skip this step if only moving user profiles.)
  3. Reinstall Communicator to the new location. Do not start Netscape after rebooting. Using Windows Explorer or a DOS prompt, move the contents of your old plugins directory to the plugins directory in the new location. Do not overwrite any files if asked. (Skip this step if only moving user profiles.) If moving the files to a different computer, use a backup tape, direct cable or network connection, or disks to perform this step.
  4. Move the user profile directories to the new location using Windows Explorer or a DOS prompt. If moving the files to a different computer, use a backup tape, direct cable or network connection, or disks to perform this step.
  5. Using Windows Explorer go to your ...\Users\{username}\News\ directory, open the file called FAT in Notepad, and fix paths to .RC and .RCG files as necessary to reflect the new locations. Repeat for each user profile if more than one exists.
  6. Using Windows Explorer go to your ...\Users\{username}\ directory and open prefs.js in Notepad. Fix any and all paths present in the file to reflect the new locations. Be careful to preserve the double-backslashes in the paths (such as C:\\Netscape\\bookmark.htm rather than C:\Netscape\bookmark.htm). Repeat for each user profile if more than one exists.
  7. Launch the User Profile Manager, and create "new" profiles directly over the old profiles that are in the new locations. Files will not be overwritten.
  8. Launch Communicator and verify paths in the Edit | Preferences menus and verify that everything works.
If followed exactly, this will allow you to move Communicator and/or your user profiles anywhere you wish. If you are moving to a network drive, you must have write permission to those directories even after the move in order to successfully run Netscape.

If you have problems after the move, keep in mind that you still have backups. Also, if you have problems with newsgroups, see section 1, number 3 at the Netscape Unofficial FAQ. If your bookmarks do not transfer, press CTRL-B then click File | Import and find your existing bookmark.htm to import it. Any plugins that do not work after the move (which should be very few if any) will need to be reinstalled.
--
Kevin Hecht

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