Windows on my pain

This weekend I did something I should have done about one year ago when I got my new iMac. I dragged out an ethernet cable, hooked it up to the old PC running Windows XP, and began the arduous task of retrieving my data.

First I had to get the computers to talk to each other. I thought it will be a process like finding the other computer on the local network and clicking it and being prompted for a username and password. I figured the latter would be no big deal because I was the “administrator” on both of the computers.

Wrong.

The better part of an hour was spent trying various things until finally, in desperation, I was able to drag and drop files on the PC to the iMac’s “public” folder.

Next, I searched on the PC for the files I wanted to copy but getting them to drag and drop was a bitch. Another hour bit the dust with nothing to show for it. Finally I said, “Fuck it,” and started dragging and dropping entire folders.

I started with “My Documents” which turned out to take something like six days. It turns out to be about two decades worth of data that I have accumulated while being a prisoner in the Microsoft world.

I know a thing or two about computers and I painstakingly brought over my wife’s email which she said was very important to her. Lady, if that’s true, you made a BIG mistake hitching your wagon to the Microsoft horse. (Or something like that.)

Her email was contained in something known as a PST file. This file turned out to be proprietary and thus wouldn’t open on a Mac. Unlike other companies and open source philosophies, Microsoft feels that your data should be as hard to use as possible, only only after you pay them money.

We had to write off my wife’s email as a total loss.

Next came my music library. Guess what? They were all in WMA format. Yep. More of Microsoft’s proprietary bullshit. Luckily I was able to download a program that converted them to MP3 files. That took another day. In the end, most of them converted, but not all. Some of them ended up having playback length of zero seconds and making beepy noises when played. And all of the song information and artwork was missing. I’m now the proud owner of a single album with 12,000 unnamed songs, all by an artist named “Unknown.”

I literally think it would be easier and less time consuming to simply go get my compact disc collection and simply re-rip them all. Thanks for all the help, technology.

Good times!

And to think I paid top dollar for this. And I never even got kissed.