cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/40885318
I’m going to switch from Windows 11 to Linux soon but first I wish to backup every every data and config files I can in my current Windows installation, even those that wouldn’t natively work in Linux. I know the \Users folder is important to back up, but I don’t know what other directories I am missing.
Buy a new hard drive/SSD for your Linux installation. Put your Windows drive away in a drawer so all of its contents are saved, and you can swap it back in if you have to. A USB adapter can be helpful for retrieving files.
- C:/Users > all user data from all users on the PC
or just from a single user
%userprofile%/AppData
%userprofile%/documents
%userprofile%/(everything else like pictures, videos, etc.) - C:/ProgramData > some programs saving files here, so all users can use the data
- C:/Program Files > majority of programs are installed here
- C:/Program Files (86x) > some programs are installed here
- C:/Users > all user data from all users on the PC
Exactly! Your user data is stored in
c:\users. This includes, well, your user data for all of the users, including all user-spefific configuration files and application data and actual files and directories created by the user.Unfortunately lots of configuration is stored in the registry and is useless for transitioning them over to Linux. Same with most Windows software that doesn’t use the registry. You’ll unfortunately also find configuration files all.over the place. Might it be in the application’s installation directory
c:\ProgramData, or somewhere else.%appdata% has a lot of it. Also while you’re there go up a folder, and have more folders with config and data files specific to either windows and/or programs and games.
