Moving Artisan® 5 to a New Computer

BACKING UP EXISTING INFORMATION

1. The first steps you need to take before you move your Artisan® 5 software to a new computer are to make backup copies of your projects, content (digital art kits), and the Activation Codes for your digital art kits.
2. To find the location of your projects so you can copy them to an external hard drive, open Artisan® on your current computer and hover over a project on the Welcome screen. You should see the filename of the project display next to the mouse pointer.  Most of the time, projects are stored at C:\Users\{your username}\Documents\Artisan Projects.
3. Once you find the location of your Artisan® projects, open File Explorer, navigate to the folder with your Artisan® projects, plug your external hard drive into your current computer, copy that folder (right-click and select “Copy”), and paste the folder onto the external hard drive. It may take several minutes for the copy and paste operations to complete, depending on the number and size of your projects.
4. To find the location of your Content (digital art kits), go back to Artisan® and click “Manage Content." In your Content Manager, click on the “Commercial Art Kits” folder listed on the left.  The exact location of the folder with your art kits will display at the top of the main screen:

NOTE:  If you have organized your content into various folders, you will need to find the location of each folder listed in your Library on the left.  Do not worry about Built-In kits; they are automatically installed with each installation of Artisan®.

5. Once you have located all your Content, go back to File Explorer, navigate to the folder with your Content, copy that folder (right-click and select “Copy”), and paste the folder onto the external hard drive. Repeat these steps for every Content folder you have.
6. To find your Activation Codes for your digital art kits, click on “Activation Codes” (1) in the Content Manager section of Artisan®. When the pop-up window displays, click on “Make a backup copy of my codes” (2).
   

Save this document to the external hard drive. 

NOTE:  We recommend that you always have a copy of this someplace other than your computer – two possibilities are saving these codes on an external hard drive or emailing the codes to yourself.

7. Eject the external hard drive before disconnecting it from your old computer so that you do not accidentally lose anything you just copied. (You could also shut down your old computer and wait for that process to complete before you disconnect the external hard drive.)

INSTALLING ARTISAN® ON YOUR NEW MACHINE

1. Start up the new machine and log in to your FOREVER® Account.
2. You can find your Artisan® 5 digital download along with the Activation Code for the software in your FOREVER® Account by clicking on your name in the top right corner, then clicking “Downloads:
   
3. Scroll through your Downloads screen until you find “Artisan® 5 Software." Downloads are listed in the order you purchased the products, with the most recent orders first.
4. Click on the green “Download” button for Artisan® 5.
5. While the software is downloading, click on the blue “COPY” button to copy the Activation Code.
6. When the download is complete, click on the link at the bottom of your browser window, or go to File Explorer > Downloads to find the “Artisan5Setup.exe” file, and double click on it.
7. Follow the steps in the Install Shield Wizard to install Artisan®.
8. Open Artisan® 5 and choose “Activate” to add your Activation Code.
   
   If your software requires a manual activation, please close the software program and take a look at our help desk article HERE.
9. Click on “Paste the code from the Windows clipboard” to paste the code you copied from Downloads in your FOREVER® Account.
   
10. Log in to your FOREVER® Account and you should be able to complete the installation process.

NOTE: 

** If you have any problem installing Artisan® 5 on your new machine, please contact Support at 1-888-FOREVER or support@forever.com.

INSTALLING COPIED CONTENT ON YOUR NEW MACHINE

1. Once Artisan® has been installed and activated, plug your external hard drive into your new computer.
2. Open File Explorer and go to C:\Users\{your username}\Documents.
3. Create a new folder in Documents called “Artisan® Projects."
4. Find the folder of Artisan® projects you copied from your old machine on the external hard drive and copy that file into the new Artisan® Projects folder. (This could take several minutes depending on the number and size of the Artisan® projects you are copying.)
5. Once your Artisan® projects have been copied, go to C:\Users\Public\Documents and create a folder called “Commercial Art Kits."
6. Find the folder of digital art kits that you copied from your old machine on the external hard drive and copy that file into the new Commercial Art Kits folder.
7. Once your digital art kits have been copied, open Artisan® and go to Content Manager.
8. Click on the drop-down by “Library” and choose “Add folder to library."
   
9. Browse to the location of your Commercial Art Kits folder, select the folder and click “OK."
10. Click “Activation Codes” at the top of the Content Manager window.
11. Click on “Add a new activation code” in the pop-up window.
    
12. In File Explorer, open the file of activation codes you copied from your old computer.
13. Select all the codes in the file, right-click, and choose “Copy."
14. Paste these codes into the window in Artisan® and click “OK."

All of your content is now installed on your new machine.  Remember to eject the external hard drive before you disconnect it from your new computer.

Click here for a checklist for Artisan® and Historian™ when moving to a new computer. 

Please reach out to FOREVER® Support (1-888-FOREVER or support@forever.com) with any questions about the instructions above.