Moving from LR6 on Windows 8 laptop to LR Classic on new Windows 10 laptop

[ldaegele]

Lightroom Version Number

upgrading from LR6 on old Windows 8 laptop to LR Classic on new Windows 10 laptop

Operating System

1. Windows 8
2. Windows 10

Greetings!

This is my first ever post and I am a desperate "old" woman who recently had a mini stroke and cannot always think clearly. I have been using LR since 2009 and was very resistant to moving to the Cloud subscription version. Most recently I was using LR6 on a Windows 8.1 laptop (17" screen).

I broke down and bought the Adobe Photography Plan subscription in May 2019. Although I was able to install and use Photoshop CC on my Windows 8 laptop, LRC would not install on my Windows 8 laptop so I continued using my old standalone LR6. But strangeness then happened. Slowly I noticed that whenever I was using my very own LR6, under the Help menu it would say that I was using Lightroom CC.

Then the kicker happened this past July. Hubby has a MacBook and he installed both my Photoshop and Lightroom cloud versions (from my subscription which allows two computers) on his MacBook so I could see if I liked using them on his MacBook. I don't like Macs, but when I tried to go back and use Photoshop and LR6 on my Windows 8.1 laptop, all of a sudden I got error messages that the operating system was too old and neither Photoshop nor LR6 would open up at all on my laptop. So now as of two days ago I have a brand new Windows 10 laptop and I need to "move" my LR6 catalogs and presets and everything to my new Windows 10 laptop (still with 17" screen, but went from over 7lbs to under 3 lbs).

Luckily for the past many years I have been keeping all my photos plus the LR catalog backups and previews on a huge external drive, and everything is underneath a folder called Lightroom Transfer. But I don't know where my LR presets are kept, and I cannot open LR at all on my old laptop to find out where they are kept. I have no idea how to find them to move them? What is the file extension for LR presets? Any help that anyone can give this feeble minded old woman would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you, and have a Blessed day!
Linda D.

 

[Replytoken]

Welcome to the forum! Folks here can help with desperation, and given our average age, I suspect you would not be thought of as "old". This article may help you a bit - How do I import Profiles and Presets into Classic? | The Lightroom Queen . If you read it and it doe s not make any sense to you, report back. It is better to ask for additional clarification or advice then to plow ahead under knowing that you have not understood what needs to be done.

--Ken

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Hi Linda and welcome!

Couple of things to help. We have a free eBook you can download, explains locations and how to copy. Just go to the Downloads page.

For a list of where the presets should have been (the defaults), this backup post should be helpful too:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/backup-lightroom-files/

 

[ldaegele]

Welcome to the forum! Folks here can help with desperation, and given our average age, I suspect you would not be thought of as "old". This article may help you a bit - How do I import Profiles and Presets into Classic? | The Lightroom Queen . If you read it and it doe s not make any sense to you, report back. It is better to ask for additional clarification or advice then to plow ahead under knowing that you have not understood what needs to be done.

--Ken

Thank you very much Ken for your very kind words! I will be checking out the article that you sent, but first I have bee waiting since around 10pm last night while LR Classic adds everything from my Lightroom Transfer folder on my external drive to the new catalog. I have thousands upon thousands of photos, all organized by year then month then date inside my Lightroom Transfer folder. It looks like LR Classic discovered all by itseld that my external drive letter was "F" on my old laptop and is now "E" on my new laptop, and it looks like it is adding everything to the new catalog, but very slowly... After all my photos are showing up where they are supposed to, then it will be time to work on my profiles and presets? I'm afraid to have LR do too many things at one time?

Thank you again, and have a Blessed day!
Linda

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Linda

Just to clarify - nothing should be adding to your catalog, all the photos should already be there - move the catalog from the old PC to the new one and open it. It sounds more like you've started a new catalog and you're importing everything. If you do that, you'll lose all your edits.

With the old catalog on the new PC, it's just a case of double-clicking on it, then allow it to do a catalog upgrade 9for the later version). Then relink photos as the drive letter changed.

Check the Moving Computers eBook on Downloads.

If I misunderstood, then apologies and please ignore.

 

[ldaegele]

Hi Linda and welcome!

Couple of things to help. We have a free eBook you can download, explains locations and how to copy. Just go to the Downloads page.

For a list of where the presets should have been (the defaults), this backup post should be helpful too:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/backup-lightroom-files/

Thank you Paul! I downloaded several of the ebooks, but not until after LR6 completely quit working on my old laptop. Somehow, even though I have owned standalone LR6 for several years, after I installed Photoshop from the cloud, my LR6 started showing under the Help menu that rather than being LR6, it was LRCC, which was very weird since I never was able to install LR CC on my old laptop because it wasn't compatible with Windows 8. I am wondering if I totally uninstall LR from my old laptop and then reinstall it from my LR DVD, would that be helpful in any way? To help me find things I need to move?

Thank you again, and have a Blessed day!
Linda

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Hi Linda

In the early days of what later became Classic, it was renamed with CC - and Lightroom 6 became 2015.14 / CC. Adobe really messed with the naming!

So, if you have the catalog off the old PC, use that (read the Moving Computer eBook for step-by-step) as it'll keep all the edits you did.

There's no point trying to reinstall old programs on your old PC or new one - Lightroom Classic is the latest and will happily convert your previous catalog for use (but with the need to relink files)

Step through that, let us all know how you go (confirm you have the old catalog is a good start!)

 

[ldaegele]

Linda

Just to clarify - nothing should be adding to your catalog, all the photos should already be there - move the catalog from the old PC to the new one and open it. It sounds more like you've started a new catalog and you're importing everything. If you do that, you'll lose all your edits.

With the old catalog on the new PC, it's just a case of double-clicking on it, then allow it to do a catalog upgrade 9for the later version). Then relink photos as the drive letter changed.

Check the Moving Computers eBook on Downloads.

If I misunderstood, then apologies and please ignore.

Hi Paul,
When I double clicked on my catalog on the external drive, it said it was going to upgrade it? It said it was going to make a copy of the catalog first. Then it said to click Add? So I'm not really sure what it is doing?

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Hi Linda

The upgrade process takes a copy of the catalog and works with that, putting a suffix of -v10 on the new catalog (assuming it's the latest version of Classic you're using) - at the end of that process the catalog should open. Get to that step and check back to the forum if unsure.

As the original catalog says as it is, you can always run again (it'll make the name -v10-2 if a converted catalog already exists)

Blog explains better than I!

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-upgrade-catalog/

 

[ldaegele]

Hi Paul,
When I double clicked on my catalog on the external drive, it said it was going to upgrade it? It said it was going to make a copy of the catalog first. Then it said to click Add? So I'm not really sure what it is doing?

But when I do look at some of the old pics in Developer mode, the edits are still there, but other old pics, I don't see the edits? Before it started this mess, it made a locked copy of the catalog. Should I stop everything and start over?

 

[Paul McFarlane]

I would suggest let it do what it's doing, then take stock (perhaps with the odd screenshot)

Keep an eye on the total number of photos too (if you're adding it'll be increasing)

 

[ldaegele]

I would suggest let it do what it's doing, then take stock (perhaps with the odd screenshot)

Keep an eye on the total number of photos too (if you're adding it'll be increasing)

It looks like it is making subcopies of at least some of the folders, one folder without edits and one folder with edits?

 

[ldaegele]

Hi Paul,
So sorry to be such a pest, but what is left of my brain is a bit fried. It is well over 24 hours since I started the catalog upgrade process, and LR Classic is still going at it. While it does appear that all of the hundreds of folders are now showing in the LR Classic folders panel, there is a duplicate set of folders below the "live" folders that is grayed out under a blacked out Drive F that doesn't exist on this new laptop? And below Drive F there are Drives G, H, I and J, each containing some grayed out (random as far as I can tell) folders from my external drive. and none of which are anywhere on this computer?

And now more than 24 hours after I started it is still chugging away at creating 1:1 previews and Smart Previews. My husband says I should have physically moved the catalog and everything to one of my two new 1T SSD harddrives because it is MUCH faster than my external drive. I myself think it is too late now?

I have tried reading the articles and free ebooks available on this site, and I apologize but they make my head spin. The mini stroke that I had last April isn't helping either. Although luckily I had my photos and catalogs on my external drive for several years, having my old Lightroom suddenly shut down and no longer available to me so that I could find and preserve the files referenced in those articles and ebooks is making me more confused. I am so sorry for being so much trouble.

 

[ldaegele]

Is there such a thing as a Moving from LR6 to LR Classic for Dummies book? I have tried reading the suggested articles and ebooks, but my brain isn't quite the same as it was before my mini stroke back in April and I apologize but I am having a lot of trouble grasping everything. Is there a Lightroom expert anywhere that I could pay to help me?

Before LR6 suddenly and totally quit working on my old Windows 8 laptop in July, thankfully I had everything (photos, catalogs and backups) already on a huge external drive, under a folder called Lightroom Transfer. LR Classic appears to have updated the catalog on my new Windows 10 laptop; and maybe duplicated portions of it a few times onto my new internal hard drives? In addition to the working Lightroom Transfer folder on my external drive, there are just some of the folders grayed out showing in LR Classic folder view on both my Local Disk (C and Local Disk (D? But I don't see any of these grayed out folders when looking at these drives in Windows Explorer?

LR Classic has been chugging away for well over 24 hours at building previews. Is it safe to quit LR and just copy the old previews from LR6 that I have in folders on my external drive?