Is there a guide on how to move BI to a new machine? And keep existing videos?

[Slate2000]

8 years ago, based on sage advice here at IPCamTalk, I purchased a refurbished Dell Optiplex 7050. It has run straight for nearly 8 years now without any issues. Over the years, I added more memory and switched to a larger HD. Now, I need to switch to a refurbished Dell Optiplex 7020 running Win11.

My current system has a 256 GB SSD (C:\) and a Seagate EOS X16 14TB HD (F:\). The F drive holds all my BI "New" files, and the C drive holds everything else. I want to move the F drive to the new desktop, but use the 512 GB SSD already there. I want to keep my videos and not start over if possible.

Is there a guide or help for moving to a new machine?

On the old PC, I plan to export the BI settings and the settings for each of my 10 cams. Then, import them to the new PC.

I think then I need to rebuild the DB. Not sure what else I need to do. I have a support request into BI regarding how to transfer the license.

Thanks
Terry

 

[wittaj]

You will need to de-register/deactivate the BI license first.

If you name the drives the same and point to the same place, when you rebuild the DB it will find the video, but you may lose the prior alerts.

Personally, I rebuilt BI from scratch when I went to a new computer. Just set two monitors side by side and quickly match the settings. That way you don't bring over some bug from an export. It doesn't take as long as people think. And we have seen instances where an export doesn't bring all the cameras. But if you do export, export out the BI global settings and export each camera individually. But even then there will still need to be stuff you will have to input in.

And I just made sure there was nothing I needed to look at and simply deleted all the videos and started it new from scratch.

 

[Slate2000]

I wasn't expecting that but it makes sense. Thanks!