Category Archives: USB-EASY-TRAN

Troubleshooting USB Easy Transfer Cable connection issues

Microsoft’s Windows Easy Transfer is a fantastic way to quickly import all the stuff that makes your pc yours: music, photos, videos, even personal settings like your desktop background and customizations to fonts, sounds, and other user account settings. Unfortunately, many users find that their old PC doesn’t properly install the driver for the USB Easy Transfer cable, so when they try and launch Windows Easy Transfer, they wind up stuck on the “establishing connection” screen below:

If Windows Easy Transfer is stuck on the “establishing connection” screen pictured above, or you’re seeing the “Windows Easy Transfer can’t connect to your other computer” error as shown below, and you’re trying to do the transfer over a USB easy transfer cable, there’s a good chance that manually installing the device driver on your older PC will get you up and running.

To determine if driver installation is your issue, launch device manager by holding down the Windows key and tapping “R” while holding the Windows Key. In the box that appears, type “devmgmt.msc” without the quotation marks so the entry matches the picture below, then press enter:

Our first step in troubleshooting WET connection errors is to check device manager for devices with errors as illustrated here: Device manager entry for the Windows Easy Transfer Cable with no driver installed

If you see a “USB Transfer Cable” under “Other Devices” with the yellow exclamation mark as pictured here, you’ll need to follow the steps below to manually install the driver. Also, please note that either old or new PC may need this fix, however most often the old PC is the one that needs the driver manually installed. To manually install the driver on a Windows 7 system, follow the steps below.

  1. Right click on the “USB Transfer Cable” under “Other Devices” with the yellow exclamation mark, and choose “Update Driver Software”

    Right click and choose “Update Driver Software”

  2. Select the option pictured here to “Browse my computer for driver software”
  3. Either copy and paste in the following value or browse to this directory, then click next so the “Update Driver Software” wizard is as pictured below, then click next: C:\Windows\System32\Drivers
  4. Device manager should report that drivers have been successfully installed, and Windows Easy Transfer should now run normally.

These instructions apply to both Windows 7 and Windows Vista. For Windows XP instructions, take note of the 2nd post on Microsoft’s Answers forum by “Pareeeee”: Pareeee’s post on Microsoft’s Answers forum.

“You’re currently logged on using a temporary profile. Restart you computer and try again.”

This issue has been reported several times on Microsoft’s answers forum, and has been written about by Microsoft MVP Mitch Tulloch at Windows Networking. Thanks to Mitch for his explanation of the issue. I’ve attempted to explain how to complete these steps in more detail below:

To run regedit and do the .bak deletion:

press windows key + R

run window appears, type regedit.exe in the prompt and press enter

click the small triangle next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\

more options are revealed, click the small triangle next to SOFTWARE

more options are revealed, click the small triangle next to Microsoft

more options are revealed, click the small triangle next to Windows NT

triangle next to CurrentVersion\

triangle next to ProfileList

and look any profiles that end with .bak and delete these.

LSPfix:

Another potential cause of connection issues for WET is having a corrupted winsock file. Note the post by “Dwebb83″ in this thread with instructions on how to use LSP fix to replace a corrupted winsock file.

Microsoft’s Answers forum thread

The Windows RT and Surface USB Device Compatibility Story

[Updated 11/20/2012]

Microsoft’s official statement is “Windows RT uses class drivers and in-box drivers exclusively, departing from a common driver added scenario on the x64 or x86 architectures.” (see Microsoft policies). There is no DDK. Officially, installing drivers on Windows RT is not supported.

That said, it turns out there is at least oneWindows ARM driver that exists (probably built and extracted from a full Windows RT platform development kit), and as a user you can install those drivers on a normal, unmodified Microsoft Surface device at least.

Whether Microsoft will close this mechanism in the future is unclear.

But for now, these steps show how to install a driver on the Surface to get wired ethernet support for particular devices like ours.

Below is a more complete list of all the Plugable devices which can and can’t be made to work with the surface today. Most use the drivers already built into the RT, so none of the above is a concern — but Windows RT is “special” so check for compatibility before assuming a device will work!

What devices work out of the box with ARM-based Windows RT (without a 3rd party driver install)?

USB hubs, including

USB extension cables, including

USB storage devices, including

USB keyboards and mice, including

What needs a driver package, but don’t have one for ARM-based Windows RT devices

Anything with a USB graphics function, including

Quite a few other devices with driver installs required, such as

What needs a driver package and has one available for ARM-based Windows RT devices

Feel free to add additional information in the comments, if you discover anything new or find any errors.

Moving into your new Windows 8 PC

Plan for your move!

Getting a new PC is an exciting but potentially frustrating experience since losing all the tweaks, settings, favorite websites, applications, and other customizations from the old computer can cost many hours of frustration and lost productivity.

Of the many tools available to help automate the process, Windows Easy Transfer and Bravura Easy Computer Sync are some of the best. Moving into a new pc yourself with the USB Easy Transfer cable can save you a few hundred dollars, and keep you from realizing something was missed until it’s too late. Just do yourself the favor of reading this post through to the end and asking questions before you start!

Windows Easy Transfer

Windows Easy Transfer is preinstalled on Windows 7 and Windows 8 PC’s, and it’s a great way to quickly copy documents, photos, videos, and music. Windows Easy Transfer (WET, from here on out) will also do a fantastic job with Windows settings: things like whether you have changed your background, user profile picture, text size/DPI scaling, and myriad other Windows option choices.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Windows RT and any ARM based Windows 8 Tablets including Microsoft Surface will NOT work with “legacy” Windows desktop applications like Windows Easy Transfer, Bravura Easy Computer sync, or our USB easy transfer cable.

WET allows you to quickly select user accounts on your old PC and match them up to accounts on the new PC, or even create those new accounts during the transfer. Once completed, WET offers a handy report that details what it moved:

ALL files (including pictures, music, favorite sites, etc) that were transferred will be listed under documents. If you’re not sure if something transferred, this is where you’ll need to check. The second tab at the top, “App Report” is where you can go to see what applications WET could find, and which ones might still need to be installed.

What’s the catch, or what about my apps?

It is important to note that programs are NOT transferred during this process. Microsoft left application transfer capabilities out of Windows Easy Transfer since there was no way of ensuring applications on the old PC would be compatible with the new PC, as well as the fact that many applications are only licensed for use on a certain number of systems.

To be very clear, applications installed on your old PC will NOT be available on your new PC until you install them manually. Experience with hundreds of new PC setups has taught me that it’s best to install any applications you know you’ll be needing first, and then proceed with importing application data using WET or Bravura. That brings us to….

Tips for importing application data

Typically, I review my installed programs on the old pc see what’s been used recently. Use the windows key+R then type appwiz.cpl in the window that pops up and press enter) to get to the Add/Remove Applications section of the Control Panel on old PC. Here are some lessons I’ve learned about installing the apps on the new PC:

  1. Install all applications before transferring the relevant application data. This way, when programs are run for the first time, they’ve got the best chance of having user data in place and minimizing time spent importing data to applications. This strategy relies on completing the transfer BEFORE launching any applications, so make sure not to open any of the programs you’ve installed before transferring your data.
  2. To provide the best chance of applications working normally after an automated transfer, making certain to match account names is critical! This mean to transfer my “Jeff” account to another account name Jeff- NOT Jeffrey, or the crown prince of awesome, or sir Jeffrey, or Jeph, but “Jeff” just like it was on the old PC.
  3. For some common applications like Outlook and iTunes, there are known issues with WET that make doing a separate export of the data from the old PC and import on the new PC a much better solution.

After making the list of applications I need to transfer and checking it twice, I bring the list to the new pc and visit the Ninite Website.
Ninite is a great way to quickly install many of the common free apps that are widely used, so it helps me to knock out installation of basic programs like Adobe PDF Viewer, Skype, and many other common free applications. Once Ninite has finished, proceed with manual installations of things like Office or Quicken that will require activation and/or product keys.

Once your new PC is all setup with whatever programs you know you want to move data into, you’re ready to start your transfer.

Bravura Easy Computer Sync

Since there are a few situations where Easy Transfer doesn’t work, we also provide a license for Bravura Easy Computer sync with the purchase of our USB Easy Transfer Cable.

Both tools are great, but I prefer Bravura Easy Computer Sync for the following reasons:

  1. Easy to handle manual application data export/import process via drag and drop
  2. Drag and Drop file copy between PC’s.
  3. Simplified interface
  4. Transfer from x64 bit old/source PC to x86 AKA 32 bit new/target PC.
  5. Bi-Directional, ongoing copy support. Bravura Easy Computer Sync handles ongoing transfer and sync needs, while WET is designed for only a single A to B copy, not for ongoing use.
  6. Like WET, Easy Computer Sync also provides a report detailing all the files that were transferred, however it doesn’t provide some of the additional details about applications that need to be installed as WET does. You can view the report by clicking “View Log…” on Bravura’s final screen pictured below.

Between Windows Easy Transfer, Bravura Easy Computer Sync, and Plugable Support, we’re confident a little DIY ethic can you can save a few hundred dollars getting moved into your new PC!

Plugable USB 2.0 Easy Transfer Cable Product Details $16.95