How to update Elements 12 to 2024

Hi Everyone,

I'm about to move my Elements 12 catalog and related files from a Windows 7 computer to a new Windows 11 computer with Elements 2024 on it.  

Can someone tell me whether one of the following methods is better, or come up with something that is better I haven't thought of?

1 - Open Elements 2024 on my new Windows 11 computer.  Plug in the backup drive for my photo files and run the Restore function on my most recent backup.tly file.

2 - Copy the Catalog (and all the related folders I can find) from my old Elements 12 Windows 7 computer onto a new external hard drive).  Open Elements 2024 on the new Windows 11 computer.  Use the Convert function on the old Elements 12 Catalog.

3 - Copy the Catalog (and all the related folders I can find) from my old Elements 12 Windows 7 computer and photos stored on my external photo file drive onto a new external hard drive).  Open Elements 2024 on the new Windows 11 computer.  Try to find and Open the old Elements 12 catalog.

Background (possibly relevant): I'm doing this because whenever I try to open my Elements 12 catalog on my Windows 7 computer I get a "program stopped working" error.  This error only appears when I plug in my external hard drive with my 80,000 or so photos on it.  When I do not plug in the photo disk, the program loads ok and many of the functions seem to work.  The catalog itself resides on the Windows 7 computer internal drive.  I figure both the program and the Windows 7 are too out of date to work properly (enough), hence the update.

I'm new to this community so please forgive errors I make in finding a good way to ask this question and get help.  I don't think I'll ruin the (possibly corrupted??) files any more than they already may be, if I'm just copying everything and running the functions mentioned above on the copied files.