Laptop: File Transfers with USB Stick (22nd November 2011)

Was hoping to connect both machines using USB, for convenience and adequate speed. Didn’t have a cable for that. How about an Ethernet cable between them, to create a little LAN? Worth a try. They didn’t start talking to each other automatically. No obvious way to get that ball rolling, either. This would mean both are physically disconnected from the Internet, so security wouldn’t be a worry.

Happily, Windows 7 has a Network and Sharing Centre. Clicked Set Up a Connection or Network and at the bottom of the list, so you have to scroll to it, is an item called Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer-to-computer) network. I clicked it.

A couple of steps later and in theory, ben-laptop exists as a local network from the laptop. But my current PC doesn’t see it. So I went through the XP Network Connections and found roughly equivalent options, instead I just allowed it to accept Incoming Connections.

Went to Computer > Network on the laptop. After a short time I could see the old PC! Opening it gave an empty listing because nothing has been set to share.

So I go to My Computer on the PC, right-click the hard drive and click Properties. Clicked the Sharing tab and it says If you understand the risk but still want to share the root of the drive, click here. Yes I do and yes I do, so I click it.

The tab changes and I tick Share this folder on the network, then OK. One of the better XP animations starts playing, with an interminate progress indicator bar below it. After some 10 minutes or more, it finishes.

Now the laptop can see ben-pc as a shared drive on the network! Double-clicked it and the progress bar moves along the address bar at a glacial pace, reaching the end and then displaying an error: Network path not found. But nevermind because behind it I can see the directory listing populate!

It works, I can browse around. Yay!

Sadly, Windows 7 wouldn’t copy files which were read-only or in any way special. It said the laptop needed permission from the PC’s administrator. So I have to give permission to myself. Which I thought I had already done? So I right-click the hard drive, Properties, Sharing and now tick Allow network users to change my files. About 10 minutes passes.

It didn’t work. Huh? I could’ve used an 8GB USB stick to do it by now. It’s been hours and I’ve transferred about 2 folders!

Eventually I find this in the XP Help and Support Centre:

So this approach was a non-starter. USB drive it is. What a waste of time! I used Delete this connection to ensure the Incoming Connections facility was completely removed. I then un-shared the root drive.

Transferring to USB Stick

Sadly the PC is USB 1.0, hence why I was hoping to use Ethernet. Looks like it will take about 1 hour per GB. The stick has 8GB of space.

In the meantime I started adjusting the Explorer settings in Windows 7.

  1. Laptop!
  2. Received It!
  3. File Transfers with USB Stick
  4. Full Administrator Account!
  5. Installing Firefox
  6. Installing Games
  7. Reducing Processes
  8. WiFi Gaming
  9. E-mail
  10. Backups, Old & New
  11. Desk Arrangements
  12. Migrating Music
  13. Mobile Phone Archive
  14. Web Developer Setup
  15. Printing
  16. Putting Old PC Out To Pasture
  17. Stopping the Magical Edges
  18. Disk Cleanup
  19. FTPuse Integrates Seamlessly
  20. Laptop Performance