Moving MM to a new computer

Introduction

If you want to move MediaMonkey to a new computer (or hard drive) but retain your database, follow these steps. If these steps are followed correctly, all information that is maintained by your database will be retained, including PlayHistory, PlayCounts, Dates Added, Playlists and all other fields within MediaMonkey. This guide applies to changing computers, changing hard drives within the same computer and reinstalling Windows.

The key part here is that MediaMonkey uses driveID to find your media files and not drive letter. This helps when using external drives which may have different drive letters when reconnecting. However when you swap drives or reinstall Windows your drive will have a different driveID .

Alternative Solutions

1. To move files to a different hard drive (internal or external) or a network location you can use MediaMonkey to move the files. In that case this guide doesn't apply.
2. If instead you wish to move the files outside MediaMonkey, but not the MediaMonkey installation itself, you can use Folder Monitoring on both the old and new folder or skip ahead to the change driveID section.
3. If you just want to move all your Playlists over you can use Tools > Scripts > Export All Playlists. Do make sure that the Path of your media files hasn't changed as Playlists contain this Path and it is required to work. On any other installation of MediaMonkey you can run File > Add/Rescan Files and have it scan the location with the Playlists to import them.

Preparation

Before performing the migration, it's suggested that you update the tags of your files on your old pc, so that they contain up-to-date metadata.

1. Run MediaMonkey and select all the media files in your Library
2. Click Tools > Advanced Tag Management > Synchronize Tags

You should also make sure that on the new PC that you don't have Folder Monitoring enabled nor that you scan for files before you finish this guide as otherwise you will have duplicates in your Library.

Move your media files

Next you need to move (or copy) your media files to their new location. You can do this using Explorer or any backup software to move the files through the network, or an external drive to move files between computers. The easiest transition is where you don't change the folder/filename structure of your files. They can be moved to a different hard drive letter and a different base folder (eg. C:\My Music to D:\Music).

If your media files are on a network location and you only need to move MediaMonkey you don't need to move your media files and can skip this step.

Copying your database

The next step is to copy your original database to your new PC. The key component you'll need from your old install is the MediaMonkey database file. It contains metadata about your files including metadata not saved to the files and Play History, it also contains your Playlists, Podcast Subscriptions, Devices for Synchronization, DLNA setup as well as some other settings.

1. Find your database in Windows Explorer.  For its location see: http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/16
   (Note that you will have to enable viewing of hidden Files and Folders to find this file).
2. Copy the file, and back it up.  Then place another copy to the appropriate location on your new PC.
   
3. Install MediaMonkey to the new computer.
   

Optional items to copy would be:

1. MediaMonkey.ini, which contains many MediaMonkey settings
2. Scripts folder, which contains most of the Addons you've installed
3. Registry info as well, @ HKey_Current_ User\Software\Mediamonkey

If you have a Portable Install you can move the whole portable installation folder to the new PC. This will also keep your settings and Addons intact in the new install.

Starting the new MediaMonkey

Install and run MediaMonkey on your new PC. When you start MediaMonkey on the new PC make sure you don't do any scanning of Media Files before updating the Library in the next step. You can now enter your License and change the settings to your needs. You can verify if your Library is intact. The files will show greyed out unless they were on a non-mapped network location, the next step will fix this.

Updating the database to point to the correct drive (change driveID)

Next you'll have to modify the database to point to the new drive instead of the old one.

1. Run the third party Update Location of Files in Database addon. It can fix the changed drive ID as well as changed base folder for your files.
   1. Download and double-click the Addon to install it. Follow the instructions in the Forum on how to use it.
2. If you have MediaMonkey Gold, you can use the Locate Moved/Missing Files function:
   1. Select all the greyed out tracks (if the files are on a drive no longer accessible by this installation you won't find them under Dead Links).
   2. Click File > Locate moved/missing tracks
      This will attempt to find tracks on the new drive that match the file size AND timestamp, or track metadata in the database. Make sure you verify the matches it suggest as incorrect matches will result in the wrong metadata for your files.
3. Install this script to your new PC:
   1. To install the script, first shut down MM. Next, copy the contents in the 'Code:' box at the link provided into notepad. Save the file as 'MM_HDDSerial.vbs' (without the quotes) in your C:\Program Files\MediaMonkey\Scripts folder. Next, within that same folder, find 'Scripts.ini'. Open this file with notepad and copy the following lines and paste them onto the end of the file, then save.
   2. Copy these lines into Scripts.ini:
      [HDDSerial]
      FileName=MM_HDDSerial.vbs
      ProcName=Change_HDD_Serial
      Order=99
      DisplayName=Move Device Content
      Description=Corrects broken links after exchanged hard drive
      Language=VBScript
      ScriptType=0
   3. Now you're ready to run the script. Open MM (if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, right click on the MM icon and choose "Run as administrator" even if your Windows user account has administrative rights) and run the script at Tools > Scripts > Move Device Content. If you receive any errors or the script doesn't appear under Tools > Scripts, check that you have installed the script correctly, and/or try restarting MM.
      Running the script will change the drive-ID within the MediaMonkey database to recognize your new drive, and all your database information will be retained. If you can play your music from MM, and tracks do not grey out, then you have successfully moved your MM installation to a new computer.
4. If only the drive changed for your media files you could change the driveID in Windows from the new to the old driveID.

After one of the above approaches is taken, test out whether it worked by double-clicking a track in your library to see if it plays.