transferring PSE

[skip]

I currently am running PSE 5 on a Windows XP computer. I have purchased PSE 10 and will soon be getting a new computer running Windows 7. What is the best way to transfer my pictures/videos to the new computer running PSE 10, ie, a transfer that will preserve the current tags I have on my pictures/videos? Should I load PSE 10 on the old computer and then transfer the files to the new computer (running PSE 10), or should I load PSE 5 on the new computer, transfer the files from the old computer to the new one, and then upgrade the new computer to PSE 10? Or is there a better way altogether? All my picture/video files reside on an external hard drive. Thanks.

[Barb O]

Installing PSE 10 on your XP machine and upgrading your PSE Catalog from PSE 5 to PSE 10 on XP seems to be a possibility.

-- Where is the PSE catalog on your XP machine ?
(perhaps default location on your system drive (probably C drive) or maybe on the external drive which contains the photos)

-- has the external drive on which the photo files reside always been allocated to Windows XP under the same driver letter ?

-- on your new Windows 7 machine, will you physically move over that external hard drive or will you place your photos on a different drive (perhaps an internal drive) ?

-- suggest that you post some specs on your existing XP machine to help evaluate if it is sufficient to run PSE 10

Note : No matter what approach you take to upgrading, it will be important that the PSE 5 Catalog be in good condition --
for example you should Reconnect All Missing Files (missing in this context means that the photo file does not reside at the disk folder location where the catalog "thinks" it is) and you should do a File > Catalog > Recover command on the PSE 5 Catalog immediately before starting an upgrade to new version

[skip]

Barb - the PSE catalog is in the default location on the system drive (c). The external drive has not always had the same drive letter - not sure how that happens over the years. I will reconnect all photos and videos before doing anything. Great idea on the File > Catalog > Recover. Will do that also. When I move to the new computer, I will probably put the photos on the internal hard drive and use the external hard drive to back up the files periodically. As for the specs on the XP computer, I may be in a little trouble (it seems to have a little trouble running PSE 5 - the editor locks up quite a bit). The XP computer is a Dell Dimension 4600 with an Intel Pentium 4 processor running at 2.8GHz. I have about 33 GB available on the hard drive but only 512 MB RAM. Service Pack 3 has been installed.

Can I load PSE 10 onto the XP machine without having to load Premiere Elements 10? It would seem like the system requirements for PE10 would be a lot more stringent than for PSE 10. Thanks again.