Can a user migrate ArcDesktop to a new PC by copying AppData>Roaming>ESRI>Desktop10.6?

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11-15-2018 04:09 PM
PaulHuffman
Occasional Contributor III

I am installing ArcGIS Desktop on a user's new PC.  I want of course to preserve her network and geodatabase connections from her old machine to the new machine.  It seems logical that I could just copy C:\users\name\AppData\Roaming\ESRI\Desktop10.6\ArcCatalog  from the old PC to the new PC,  because that's where all the connections are kept.  Does this work?  Is this supported and documented somewhere?  Do I also want to go farther up the tree and copy over everything in >AppData>Roaming>ESRI and maybe >AppData>Local>ESRI as well? 

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3 Replies
NeilAyres
MVP Alum

That works, yes. Have copied my custom prjs and transforms like that before.

Just check in AppData / Roaming and Local, I think Pro leaves stuff in different places as well.

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PaulHuffman
Occasional Contributor III

Well, it worked, but there were unexpected complications.  First, Windows tries hard for some reason to keep AppData hidden.  Even the copy of AppData>Roaming>ESRI>Desktop10.4 that I made on a thumb drive.  Sometimes you can type in AppData in File Explorer to browse down that branch farther, even it doesn't appear in  the folder list, but you can also go to File Explorer View>Options>change folder and search options>view>advanced>show hidden files, folders and drives.

On the target machine, the new one, there was no path c:\users\username\AppData\Roaming\Esri\Desktop10.6 to copy ArcCatalog into,  even though ArcDesktop was installed and running for Administrator.  I had to log in as user and start ArcCatalog for the first time as that user for the tree structure to show up.  Then I closed ArcCatalog, and overwrote the two files in the AppData/Roaming folder ArcCatalog.

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LaureneKoman
Occasional Contributor III

The folder not present is expected behavior. The APPDATA folders are created by the applications at runtime (not by the installation process).   Good post, glad the migration was successful for you. 

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