Well, should I just backup the data directory? I have 2 directories here, one is the Bitcoin core directory and the other is the data (I think the nodes are downloaded there) directory.
The important directory is where the "
blocks", "
chainstate" and "
wallets" folders are. It's what we refer to as bitcoin "
datadir".
The directory with bitcoin-qt.exe is just your install directory.
And depending on how you originally set that datadir, your bitcoin.conf file may have to be moved for your previous config file settings to apply:
- If you originally set it in the Welcome Screen (1st time use or with --choosedatadir arg), everything should carry over once you point the datadir path to the copied datadir using the new setup's Welcome Screen.
It should continue where you left it since the applied bitcoin.conf is also saved there. (simple and easy as long as the copy is intact) - But if you relied on a bitcoin.conf file (with datadir= line) located in the default datadir, while the datadir was set to default in the Welcome Screen, you can either;
Do exactly what you did in that previous setup (recommended in this case),
Or copy that to the new setup's datadir set in the Welcome Screen but remove the datadir= line since it's already set in the Welcome Screen since it'll treat that as relative path.
The gist is, the bitcoin.conf file that Bitcoin Core (
GUI) will use is where you pointed the datadir in the GUI's Welcome Screen or
--datadir command line option.
For bitcoind, it's where you set
--datadir=<>, else, it'll use the bitcoin.conf file in the default directory.