I wanted to move everything from Windows XP to Windows 7. I have all my music on a network drive so this did not need to be copied, but I didn't want to loose my preferences, backups or synch settings.
So here's what I did:-
...
Thank you! I will be trying that tomorrow night. I'll let you know how it goes.
EDIT: I didn't end up following the above advice. I examined the folders WantStuff suggested and found little to nothing that affected the iPhone. What I did:
1. I installed a fresh copy of iTunes in Windows 7.
2. Under the
Store menu, I selected
Authorize This Computer... and provided my details.
3. I set all of iTunes preferences, particularly the
iTunes Media folder location settings in the
Advanced tab, which I set to
M:\iTunes, a network drive where all of my iTunes media already resided.
4. I brought up the
M:\iTunes folder in an Explorer window.
5. I dragged the folder into the iTunes library. iTunes imported all of the files. Because the files were already in the correct location, iTunes didn't waste time copying everything, it just read the library information.
6. I plugged in my iPhone. I right-clicked my iPhone under
Devices and pressed
Back Up, just in case. You can restore from backup by right-clicking your iPhone, and selecting
Restore from Backup....
7. I told iTunes to
Sync Apps. It threatened to erase everything on my iPhone. I crossed my fingers and pressed
OK.
8. Since all of the apps on my iPhone were now in iTunes and authorized, it did not remove them or wipe any data.
So I'm a happy man with my iPhone successfully transferred to a new computer.
The key things to ensure are: iTunes is authorized for the correct account; and all media you want to keep on your iPhone is present in your iTunes library.