That sounds good, as it would mean only one click was necessary to display the contents of the thumb drive. But how can I set WE to a default that represents the thumb drive? It won't show a thumb drive at all--much less its contents--unless there is actually a thumb drive in a USB port. The problem is probably that I don't understand how to set WE to start with the "C: root directory." My WE always comes up with a listing to the left that starts with Favorites, Libraries, etc., and C: is a bit down the list. I never used WE (from the Start button) much and have just realized that it is apparently the same thing as "My Computer," which I have been double-clicking on for a connection to the thumb drive. If I click on WE, which I do have pinned to the taskbar, and then one more click on the name of the thumb drive, that's two clicks to see the contents of the drive. One less click than if I click on the My Computer icon on my desktop. So thanks to you, I now only have to make two clicks, instead of three. Perhaps that is the fewest clicks I can hope for. Granted, the old autorun way only required one click, so I would only be saving one click anyway; but hubby and I are translators who both work on the same job, so we are constantly swapping thumb drives back and forth, and it gets old going through a series of clicks every time. If I had never known the convenience of autorun, I would be taking things in their stride and not be complaining.

Gene, I never noticed or heard of that before. If these pictures are special to you may I recommend multi-copies over various media with a disk and a thumb drive at a minimum. The estimated life cycle of storage media is still in its infancy stage and are only approximations/estimates/guesses. No one really knows what the future may bring. So why not give yourself a little insurance by doing so. You may consider free on-line storage also. DA

Yes, a flash drive is essentially just like any other drive, and as pkponder says, just use Windows Explorer to drag folders and files into and out of it. Make sure your different groups of files - say photos - stay in their own Photos folder on the Flash drive, so things don't get all mixed up. Make new folders when necessary. When you get to the new computer, just drag files to the places that you want them - probably similar locations as in the old computer. Also I always use a two pane Windows Explorer view so I see the folders on the left, and folders and files on the right. Open up as many Windows Explorer windows as you like, and drag from one to the other. You can even do copy and paste. Try experimenting a little bit - you'll probably find it's not that difficult. By the way, Microsoft has an Easy Transfer Tool which started with XP but I believe is builtin starting with Vista. That would probably do it all for you : http://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-using-easy-transfer-to-migrate-data-between-xp-vista-windows-7/ and the following . . . It looks like you have to start with XP, but I believe it works just as well starting with Vista. Here is a link that might be useful: Migrate XP to Windows 7 with Easy Transfer and a USB Drive

Bigger question is are you looking for backups or to transfer the files around? If you want backups, how privacy conscious are you? If you don't care about sharing your videos, there are literally dozens of cloud services that can store or back up your videos, some for free, some for a fee. Many of the backup services can also back up any files on your computer, and make them available to pretty much any other computing device, OS etc... If you're privacy concerned, make sure you have multiple local copies of any files you want to back up. Flash drives are great for transfers, i.e. temporary storage while moving files around. They're not great for archival, they do tend to fail with no warning at all. So either have 3 or more copies on different flash drives, or use a different backup method. There are lots available, again at all different price points. In any case, you want multiple copies. Here's where DVD-Rs are useful - they are write once, so they can't be accidentally erased, they now are very cheap, so you could have 20 or more for the price of a 4GB flash drive, and if stored in a cool dark place, usually last at least a couple years. There are more expensive archival ones that claim to last 70 years, though I'd probably still check every few years if I really cared about the data, if only to migrate to current formats if necessary.