best way to port LR catalog to a new computer

<p>I just purchased a new desktop to replace my old one.</p>

<p>My LR catalog resides on two drives. The C: drive keeps recent work and I keep my image library on a 1 TB external drive connected by USB.</p>

<p>After I install software (LR + CS5 + Nik + ...) on the new computer, I need to port my image library from the old computer to the new one. What's the best way to do this?</p>

<p>I presume I should move everything from the C drive to the external drive and then do "export as catalog". Is that correct? I usually "export as catalog" when I need to move stuff from my laptop to my desktop.</p>

<p>Also, I believe my Adobe licenses only allow 2 machines. Therefore, I will have to uninstall from my laptop so I can run on both desktops. Once I decomission the old desktop, I can uninstall on it and reinstall on my laptop. Is that correct?</p>

<p>Thanks for all your help!</p>

<p>thats really overkill. as long as you shutdown LR cleanly, move the .lrcat file (the catalog) and the preview folder and then repoint LR to the new location, you should be golden.</p>

<p>The LR licensing thing is honor-bound. You should only have it installed on 2 machines and running on 1 at any moment</p>

<p>I agree with Howard. One caveat is that the external drive needs to get the same drive letter on the new computer as it had on the old... Or if it doesn't, you'll need to re-point Lightroom to the new name for that drive.</p>

<p>As for the license, don't worry about it. Just install it on the new desktop, with the knowledge that you'll be retiring the old one shortly.</p>

<p>OK, I've got the new computer running and have installed both LR and CS5. On my old computer, I have moved my entire image library to an external drive. Now I connect it to the new computer with USB 3. Wow, it's fast!</p>

<p>So, I can see all the raw files in LR, but there are no processing instructions. I need to "point at" the catalog. How do I do that?</p>

<p>I figure I need to find the LRCAT files and then somehow tell LR about them. Looking in my file structure, I can see LRCAT files in some of the subdirectories, but not all of them. For the ones I cannot find, I know I imported and edited them in LR.</p>

<p>So, why can I not find some of these files? And how do I point LR to the ones I can find?</p>

<p>Once I find them, I can use LR to transfer them off the external drive onto the internal drive, right?</p>