Moving existing project files to a different location

Question

I read in an article by Paul Filkins < > that it is indeed possible to move existing projects to a different location. He says, "To add them back into the Projects View if you do move them all you have to do is open the SDLPROJ file from the new location and that&rsquo;s it." However, several of my colleagues say that this doesn't seem to work. When you try to open the file, Studio will tell you, they say, that the project is already present in the project list. 
 Paul Filkins also says in his article that Studio writes the location of the projects into a file called the projects.xml. I am wondering if this file must perhaps be edited manually for the above procedure to work? And if I move (or copy) existing project folders to a new location, should I also copy the projects.xml file there? 
 By the way, I have worked in Studio 2011 so far, and I am about to upgrade to Studio 2015. I would like to be able to open my Studio 2011 projects in the new version. Can I move (or copy) them to the desired location before installing and then simply open each project file from the new location in Studio 2015? Will the Studio 2011 projects.xml file also be used by Studio 2015 to locate existing projects created in Studio 2011, or will they be included in a newly created 2015 projects.xml file when opened in Studio 2015? 
 Thank you in advance for any comments and explanations!

Jerzy Czopik · Answer

If the project is indeed listed, just right click it in the list and remove. Then you can open it again. 
Moving projects from one computer to another or all around the place is trivial, as long the paths do not change. 
For example you have three drives in you PC: 
c:\ 
d:\ 
p:\ 
Project is on p:\, but TMs and TBs are on d:\. So you can move the project to any newly installed drive on this pc and no problems will occur. 
However, if your TMs/TBs are on p:\ too within the project and you move the project elsewhere, you will get error messages, prompting you to point Studio to a proper TM/TB location. 
If you have two PCs with exactly the same folder structure, you can move a project from one PC to another with no loss (provided you have synchronized your TMs). 
 
I have been doing this for years with perfect results, synchronizing my TMs/TBs between desktop and laptop. Both have the same folder structure, so I just need to copy the project from A to B and open it by double clicking SDLPROJ file. 
 
Answer to your second question: as long the paths will be maintained, no problem. Should the paths change, you will need to adapt them. You can do that either manually in Studio when opening the projects or by search & replace with some decent application in the SDLPROJ files. The old projects will NOT be included in the Projects.xml of Studio 2015 by default. OTOH this is not a problem - and it is advisable to keep there (in the Projects.xml) as few projects as possible. Otherwise this file tends to get corrupt and prevents Studio from startup. So we finish projects here (right click and chose "Finish") and close them, so that my Projects.xml only shows the running projects.

Paul · Answer

Hi Marie, 
 Perhaps I should defend my comments! 
 Unknown said: "To add them back into the Projects View if you do move them all you have to do is open the SDLPROJ file from the new location and that&rsquo;s it." However, several of my colleagues say that this doesn't seem to work. When you try to open the file, Studio will tell you, they say, that the project is already present in the project list. 
 If y7ou don't remove the project from your list before moving it then of course Studio will tell you the project is already there. So the process would be this: 
 1. Remove the Project you wish to move from Studio 
 2. Move the project (copy the whole project folder including the sdlproj file) 
 3. Open the sdlproj file in Studio using the "Open Project" command 
 That will work. The things that can go wrong of course are if you have TMs, Termbases, AutoSuggest Dictionaries etc. in your project that are in a different location. If these resources are not present on the computer in the new location of the project then you will get warning messages that they are not there. 
 Unknown said: Paul Filkins also says in his article that Studio writes the location of the projects into a file called the projects.xml. I am wondering if this file must perhaps be edited manually for the above procedure to work? And if I move (or copy) existing project folders to a new location, should I also copy the projects.xml file there? 
 Definitely not. If you remove the Project from Studio using Studio then the reference in the projects.xml will also be removed. If you add it back in using Studio then the projects.xml will be updated. Problems usually occur when people move projects to a new location but don't tell Studio that they did this. Studio is not sitting there watching to see whether you move your projects around in Windows Explorer ;-) 
 Unknown said: By the way, I have worked in Studio 2011 so far, and I am about to upgrade to Studio 2015. I would like to be able to open my Studio 2011 projects in the new version. Can I move (or copy) them to the desired location before installing and then simply open each project file from the new location in Studio 2015? Will the Studio 2011 projects.xml file also be used by Studio 2015 to locate existing projects created in Studio 2011, or will they be included in a newly created 2015 projects.xml file when opened in Studio 2015? 
 The best thing to do is use the Studio Migration Utility described in this article: 
 
 But if you don't do this then you can do what you have suggested. Copy the projects to the location you want and then open the projects in Studio 2015 from the sdlproj. The projects.xml in Studio 2015 will be automatically updated. 
 Don't over complicate this, it's really not difficult and I do it regularly. Just focus on the projects and if you do get messages about missing TMs and Termbases then just locate them when prompted. 
 Regards 
 Paul

Trados Studio > 1. Trados Studio

Moving existing project files to a different location