I had an iPhone and Windows Vista.

I now have a new laptop, with Win XP.

I’m terrified to lose my contacts and calendar, so I have two questions:

1) On the apple forums it says:

‘On your new computer, if you have one "unique" contact and calendar event, when you plug the phone in to sync, it will give you the option to "merge" the contacts and calendar. That will place the old information on the new computer. Make sure that the event and contact are not something you already have on the iPhone.’

I don’t understand this. It says that I have to make a contact and calendar entry: where?!?! ‘On your new computer’ really doesn’t do the trick I’m afraid. In which program? Where, how (I have some contacts in outlook express now for example, but I don’t think that’s it)?

2) I still don’t really understand how I can make a backup of my old apps and photos etc: ‘export the library’ I;’ve tried. That takes about 683KB. That can’t be it? I also tried making a backup with the backup option. THere are now undreds of files in the backup folder with names like asas7678s877f6d7f, I guess that’s the real backup? I could put that on an USB stick and transfer it to my new laptop?

Please help me out here, I am really VERY uncertain, and when I originally transferred files from my old mobile to my iPhone, I lost over a 1000 phone numbers, so I really don’t want something like that happening again. 🙁

So to be clear: I would like to transfer my notes, calendar and contacts to the iTunes on my NEW laptop. If possible, I would like to transfer my old apps, photos etc as well. HOW do I do this without having to burn a cd (I have no burner)? I’m afraid I really need a step-by-step guide.

UPDATE

It worked! Here’s what I did:

1. To save contacts, I opened iTunes on the new laptop, connected the iPhone, then went to INFO in iTunes and told iTunes to synchronize contacts with Windows addressbook. You are then asked to merge or replace the contacts. Choose MERGE or you will loose all contacts on your phone.
2. To get access to all files etc. from your iPhone on your new iTunes/laptop, make a copy of the iTunes folder on your OLD laptop/PC (can be found in your music folder) and put that in the exact same place on your new laptop as it was on the old one.
3. In the new laptop, click on STORE in iTunes, and choose ‘computer machtigen’ or ‘authorize computer’. Then sync your iPhone with iTunes on the new laptop. DONE.

In this scenario you keep your contacts, calendar, text messages, notes and apps. You only lose your mp3’s and videos. But whatever, you can copy/paste those from your old computer anyway. Will just take some time.

I’m happy. 🙂