Talk:Transferring data to a new profile

This article had all the files for the 3 different apps jumbled together, so I sorted out the browswer and mail/newsgroup files and put them in separate sections. It might be better, though, to simply make 3 sections, one each for Firefox, Thunderbird, and the Suite. Would be better for end-users that way. --wintogreen 15:15, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

If you were going to split them up, I'd prefer just making separate articles.--Np 23:47, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to put the note in the top section:
Note: Do not copy the whole profile directory. Some of the other files contain absolute path information (like for security certificates), and your profile might not work correctly with old entries from the original profile.--Dickvl 16:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Extensions

Should we add the Extensions folder to this migration list, with qualifications about no doing so if there were problems on the old profile? i.e. overwrite new profile Extensions folder with old one, delete Ext rdf, cache, ini (if it exists) and let them be rebuilt on restart. This would save people a lot of time.

Even on an old corrupt profile, I haven't yet seen the jars and xpis within the Extension folder itself be corrupted, but migration in this case would not be suggested anyway--Frank Lion 22:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't care either way but if you add the "Extensions" folder you'll have to point out that it's for Firefox 1.5+ or Thunderbird 1.5+ only Alice Wyman 02:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me.--Np 02:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Fine, I'll run with that, just want to check out a couple of other details first.--Frank Lion 10:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Made some formatting changes on the page and added links to the articles.--Dickvl 10:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed the reference to Thunderbird from the Browser section and added a second "extensions folder" paragraph under the Mail & NG section for Thunderbird. While I was at it, I added a separate entry for "(number).s" to the Browser section, for Mozilla Suite, even though it's already listed in the Mail section, for a number of reasons; one being, the file is also used by the browser component and it's possible to have a "browser only" install of Mozilla Suite/SM. Alice Wyman 01:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Target audience

This article is too technical for most users and requires them to make too many decisions IMHO. The articles name says its about migrating settings but thats not what it actually talks about. It also doesn't deal with the different reasons why you're trying to migrate parts of an existing profile. What are the typical use cases for this article?

Look at the "Recovering data from your old profile" section in Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared , the moving it manually sections in Migrate_from_Mozilla_Suite_or_Netscape_to_Thunderbird and the Combining_two_profiles article. They are examples of specific tasks that could use a common article, if it was written for the right audience.

I suggest we either replace the article with one for each application or split the article into one for browsers and one for mail/news. In either case we should rename them more appropriately and rewrite them to provide more of a task focus. I've added a request for comments template since I think this is a poor quality article that needs a review. Tanstaafl 14:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)