PC upgrade - a diary

[Drew Stephenson]

I've got a long weekend coming up that I was hoping to use to get it up and running. Ho hum.
Hopefully it'll get here by Friday.

[The Bunk]

I've just had a right palaver with DHL as part of my PC upgrade (which is basically me converting "studio" / spare bedroom into a home office, for which I needed a new desk and new PC). Long story short, DHL mucked the whole thing up and the company I bought the desk from got shafted. They were brilliant and offered me a full refund, which I duly accepted and received within 24 hours. I hope their gaffer gets on to DHL and gets some sort of compensation.
That said, I then ordered a desk from John Lewis which was subsequently (and promptly) delivered to me by two Eastern Europeans in no uniform and an anonymous white van.

[Drew Stephenson]

A big box has arrived.
Actually it's a huge box. No worries about insufficient packing materials here...

[Music Wolf]

Drew

Before powering anything up double check that you have removed any internal packaging in the case. I vaguely recall that my Scan computer was packed this way.

[Drew Stephenson]

Yep, that's what it says on the instructions.

And yes, i am one of those weirdos who actually reads the instruction manual.

[Drew Stephenson]

Well I fished out the bits boxes first and was initially a bit concerned that it was going to be a bit more DIY than I was expecting:

But it the motherboard box is empty and the fans and connections all appear to be spares because I have a non-standard case size.

[wireman]

Drew

Before powering anything up double check that you have removed any internal packaging in the case. I vaguely recall that my Scan computer was packed this way.

Useful if you need a lot of bubble wrap.
And there may be a restore USB hidden inside.

[Drew Stephenson]

Correct on both counts!

Just about to kick off the transfer process, almost don't know where to start!

[Martin Walker]

Slowly but surely, with occasional checks

Good luck, and god bless all who compute in her!

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

Well, after about three hours last night we're roughly halfway through.
So far it's largely going to plan: iLok transfers all seamless (one of the big batches), and a few standalone tools with no issues yet.
Hit a snag with Jam Origin's Midi Guitar but they responded quickly to my previous mail so I'm sure they'll get me sorted quickly.
I should point out that I've not tested any of them yet, that'll be a fun job once I've transferred everything across.
Native Instruments and Waves still to go though, they make me nervous.

[Agharta]

With Komplete, if you have the large sample libraries installed you can copy them from your old system and use Native Access to point to their location.
This is particularly useful if you have Komplete on DVDs or a slow Internet connection.

[Drew Stephenson]

Fortunately I'm a very recent adopter so I don't have much from NI - but my user experience to date hasn't been exactly thrilling.
It's much the same with Waves actually...
I'll be picking that lot up tomorrow. I have warned the better half to expect much swearing.

[MOF]

Fortunately I'm a very recent adopter so I don't have much from NI - but my user experience to date hasn't been exactly thrilling.

NI used to be dreadful but now their Native Access has made it a much simpler affair. I presume it’s the same on Windows as I’m a Mac user. I’ll get my coat then, (Fast Show reference).

[Martin Walker]

Well, after about three hours last night we're roughly halfway through.

Only six hours for this mammoth transfer?

Wow!!!!!!!

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

I've not done any content transfer yet! This is just programmes and licenses.

Anyway, it's all clearer than trying to make sense of Amazon's new music downloader/malware thing. I have sworn at that a lot tonight.

[2pods]

Keep at it.

I've finally got mine finished. Now to back it up.

[Drew Stephenson]

Jam Origin sorted, another speedy response from them.
Native instruments now.
Ho hum.
The instructions say to go to the 'Manage Devices' page and deactivate on the old machine etc. etc.
Except those instructions are for pre-Native Access installations.
So I've downloaded Native Access on the new machine and got both machines running and NA open. I'm just trying a straight install in the hope that it will prompt me for some kind of activate/deactivate instructions.

[Drew Stephenson]

Ah. Ahem.
I apologise sincerely to Native Instruments and in the future I shall make sure I am reading the correct line on the spreadsheet.

[Drew Stephenson]

Hmmm. I appear to be running into a problem with Spitfire not wanting me to put the sample libraries where I want to put them.
Uninstalling and starting again on this one.

[Drew Stephenson]

Well, I may have been halfway through the list in three hours, but the other half took ten hours yesterday.
Still, it did give me plenty of time to sit and play guitar along to my new CDs whilst things downloaded and uploaded and validated and made a quick return journey to Mars etc.

Now to work through everything on the new machine and catch any downloads I've missed.

[Drew Stephenson]

Having some fun with Izotope. Trying to authorize there is a tickbox for 'Use iLok authorisation', that being what I use I have ticked it.
Which then gives me an error message "Your serial number for does (sic) not support iLok authorisation or is already authorised with an iLok. Please use the Challenge/Response method of contact Technical Support for assistance."

Well, I'm sure that whoever wrote that knew what the Challenge/Response method is but I'm bolloxed if I can see anything with that kind of wording anywhere on the either the plugin, the izotope webpage or on the ilok page.

Turns out unticking the 'Use iLok authorisation' is the way to authorise it with iLok.

[Drew Stephenson]

Ok, add about three hours on today and I think we're done.
Including all my awkward control surface set-ups with Reaper. I was expecting this to be harder work but by having a OneDrive folder open on both machines I was able to pick up all the set-up files and templates and just drag them up and down one folder at a time and it all seems to have worked.
I mean, it should work like that, but I'm always a bit surprised that it does.
I have just identified one awkward little fly in the works though. My new computer doesn't have a card-reader - so I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get stuff off the ROdecaster for work, but hopefully it will just work as remote drive when it's not being an AI?
I guess I'll find out tomorrow.
Aside from that I think we're there.
Now I just need to back up all my files on the old machine and then work out which ones to archive and which ones to move to the new machine.

But for this thread, I think I'll leave it there unless I run into any further hitches.

[RichardT]

Congratulations on a successful move! I hope your new machine lasts as long as the old. There’s no reason why not these days.

[Drew Stephenson]

Cheers Richard, here's hoping; the last one did stirling service.

[Martin Walker]

As it came from Scan I suspect your new PC will have a long and happy life like the previous one

Well done Drew!

Do we open a bottle of champagne in its honour now?

Martin