Importing windows files and settings into Ubuntu

[Daniel Robitaille]

On 12/19/05, David Stone <polygons at ispwest.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> (My first post to ubuntu-devel isn't it exciting?)
>
> I read an interview with the developers of Firefox a few weeks ago and
> they said that the feature that allowed the most people to start using
> Firefox was the feature that imported settings and favorites from
> Internet explorer. They also said that if the Linux distributions could
> do the same thing for windows that more could use Linux. So what I'm
> suggesting is that we make a utility that could copy things like the My
> Documents, My Pictures, My Music etc. to the user's home folder and
> organize them in a logical manner. It could even add the music to
> Rythembox so it would be very easy to find. It could also import
> settings like the desktop background to Gnome, the homepage and
> bookmarks to firefox, the msn login name to gaim (maybe even yahoo, aim
> and mirc), Preferences from cross-platform OSS software could also be
> imported such as OO.org, firefox and gaim. I hope you can see the value
> in such a utitlity for people migrating from Windows. Essentially all it
> would be doing is taking a windows profile and converting it to an
> appropriate home directory. With it Ubuntu could make a very good first
> impression when the new user sees that his background and homepage
> haven't changed.
>
> Please share your thoughts on this, or let me know if such a utility
> already exists.
>
> David Stone

By the way, there is  already a Spec on the wiki and Launchpad about
something somwhat similar to what you propose:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MigrationAssistant
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/migration-assistant


--
Daniel Robitaille