I have a copy of the wallet.dat file from the bitcoin-qt client that I had installed on an old computer. I know that that file contains my bitcoins.
Today I installed the client on my new computer because I want to use my bitcoins, but at the rate the sync is happening I think it will take a week or more to complete.
Is there any faster way that I can pull my bitcoins out of the wallet.dat file and use them?
bitcoin-QT takes a while to load and catch up to the blockchains. try using armory, electrum or multibit. you can get your coins up and ready really fast... as it uses blockchains from the cloud.
btw, i downloaded the entiere bitcoin-QT blockchain and it took about 10-12 hours on my SSD drive. you must have a mechanical HDD?