Q: I have a laptop system that came with a recovery disc rather than a full version of Windows. If I need to restore the system at some point I’ll lose all of my ISP and email settings. Is there any way that I can save this information so that I can easily put it back on the machine?
A: Probably the easiest way to save your settings so that you can quickly restore your Internet connection is to use the Windows Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. This is intended to help you migrate to a new PC but it’s ideal for this type of contingency too.
In XP click on Start and go to All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, tell the system that this is your old computer and create a Wizard Disk. You can then use this to create a file containing your settings that you can save to an external drive, if you have one, or save to your internal hard disk and burn to DVD later. Should you need to reinstall, run the wizard after you’ve installed Windows, tell it that this is a new computer, then import the settings from the saved file.
You can of course use this method to save much more than your ISP details. It allows you to save all of your Windows preferences such as desktop wallpaper along with settings and files for individual programs. The same options are available in Vista but the program is now called Windows Easy Transfer.
In Vista you can use the Windows Easy Transfer function
Originally featured in PCU107