Transferring Visual Studio files to a new laptop

[Qui-Gon]

Just got a new machine and I'm in the process of transferring files from my old laptop to my new one. Both are Windows machines with x64-based processors. Is there a rough-and-ready way to transfer VS files? It seems like I'll need to redownload VS on the new laptop, as I met difficulties when trying to simply copy VS onto a flash drive and move it to the new laptop that way, but I'm wondering what the process is like for moving VS project files? Hoping it's not the case, but I feel like the file structure is going to change and so VS may not be able to recognize the projects I copy over. Thanks in advance. @Daniel Duffy @APalley

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Worst case scenario .. you might have to create projects from scratch. However, maybe not?
Do you have many projects?

Guess CMake on VS2019??

 

[Qui-Gon]

All of the projects from the intro C++ course here on QuantNet. Though I likely won't copy all of them, still more than 50 I would say. I'll check out CMake -- thanks a lot, Dr. Duffy.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

I'm guessing a bit but maybe this?

Customize CMake build settings in Visual Studio

Learn more about: Customize CMake build settings

docs.microsoft.com

 

[Daniel Duffy]

How Can I create a Cmake file from existing visual studio CPP project?

I am dealing with relatively big visual studio CPP project (we implemented this project from scratch in windows environment). Now, I have to compile this project in Linux environment. But, I have n...

stackoverflow.com

 

[Qui-Gon]

I think I got pretty lucky because the software specs of my new laptop are the same as my old one (both are x64 Windows machines). I was able to simply copy and paste all of my projects on my old laptop to a flash drive and then transfer them to the new one in one fell swoop. I made sure to download the same version of VS on my new laptop, and from there I've been able to run all my old projects with no problems. Just had to make sure the Boost-enabled projects knew where to look for the Boost libraries, but besides that, it was quite easy! It seems like CMake is well-suited to handle the general case though e.g. Windows to macOS, etc. Thanks again for your help, Dr. Duffy.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

And you kept the Boost directory the same as well?

 

[Qui-Gon]

For the few projects I've checked so far, I've had to change the directory, but it is a very minimal change. I copied all the below folders onto a USB drive, ported them to my new computer, and then copied them into a new folder on the new laptop. From there, when I opened a project in VS that was making use of Boost, all I needed to do was change the additional include and library directories in VS to the new paths on my new laptop and everything was good to go.