Restoring catalog

[tenchangler]

I am running Photoelemets 2020 on Win 10

The program is on my main windows drice c and the photos on a data drive D

The catalog file 'May 2020' is found on the c drive PrgData/Adobe/Eelements organizer/ Catalog/May2020

Win 10 will not update past 1809 and so I am faced with a total re installation of Win 10 requiring a fresh instal of EO 2020.  This will require the restoring of catalog May 2020.

Is there any way of doing this apart from deleting every image on the D drive and then restoring my catalog from a back up held on an external drive. I believe if I just do a restore every photo will end up being duplicated and ther 22,000 photos going back over 60 years.

Is there anyway I could save the May 2020 file and paste it back onto the fresh c drive and EO will pick up my catalog and thus saving loads of work.

[MichelBParis]

It's simpler than that.

From Windows explorer, just copy the whole folder of your catalog located on your C drive to the D drive, under the root drive.

Use the catalog manager to browse to the new 'custom' location and open the catalog copy.

Alternatively you can also simply double click the 'catalog.pse18db' database file to open the organizer with the moved catalog.

The catalog and the photo library is available from any other computer with the same PSE version. So, you don't need to re

You can copy or move the catalog folder anywhere, its content is not changed. You can move the catalog back to default from the explorer or from the catalog manager (button 'move').

Having a full backup is not necessary, but it is a good idea anyway.

Side note, that's not your question, but uninstalling and reinstalling Elements does not require deactivating and reactivating since you are keeping the same hardware. No harm to do it though...

[tenchangler]

Hi Michel

Amazing thank you.You have taught an old 80 year old dummy some new tricks.

Thankfully I had cloned my old c drive to an external ssd via Macrium Reflect.

So I found my catalog 'May 2020' and copied it the new c drive.

Opened EO and there it was waiting for me.

Excellent thank you very much

[Bob_Ganz]

I know this isn't a Windows forum but you don't say why your Win10 won't update further than v1809. I had the same problem and it turned out to be because the manufacturer was no longer supporting my 'old' computer (6YO) and therefore certain manufacturer-developed drivers that were incompatible with newer Win10 versions aren't being updated.  If ythat is your problem, re-installing Windows might not get you anywhere and may be a frustrating experience. But if you have resolved your problem with Win, and it was because of unavailable drivers, I would be interested in hearing about how  🙂 . And BTW, I still use that old computer with Win 10 v1809 but at some point I know apps will stop working with it. And another BTW, I am having no problem running PE2020 on this old computer.

[tenchangler]

The reset worked as I am now on 2004 win 10 pro

Hardwork putting all the software back on especially as some were old cd/dvds

Had an issue with the DVD drive for a whole day but I kept trying different boot sequences and it now hopefully seems to have setttled down.