Hi Geoff,

You may possibly be misunderstanding Sync. It is not intended to be a server based backup system. That may explain your difficulties in discovering instructions.

Here is a list of articles on using sync

• How do I set up Sync on my computer?
• How do I choose what information to sync on Firefox?
• How do I add a device to Firefox Sync?
• also
  • How do I set up Sync on my computer?
  • Where can I find the code to add a device to Firefox Sync?
  • Use Sync to share your Firefox bookmarks, passwords and more with Firefox for mobile
  • Disable Firefox Sync on a lost phone or tablet
  • Use Sync to share your Firefox bookmarks, passwords and more with Firefox for mobile

Note that Sync is to sync between devices and not to sync from a server.

1. You will need to sync from the XP to the other two machines.
2. Then once you retire the XP. You will need to choose one of the other machines as the main one.

• It is possible to transfer bookmarks manually
  Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer

IIRC Sync is planned for deprecation and the replacement system may well allow proper server based syncing; where the server is the backup.

<<Then once you retire the XP. You will need to choose one of the other machines as the main one. >>

How do I choose the main one? I have read many of the docs and never found a hint about this.

Setting up Sync has been very difficult. The system messages are unclear...it's not even possible to know if a machine is set up unless you know the "secret" about seeing "Set Up Sync" on the menu. Might be logical to the developer but not to this end-user.

Last night I was running back and forth for hours trying to set it up on my PC's. My notes include six sets of 12-character codes and one of those long password strings. When the link-up fails, there's no error message.

Last night I renamed the whole feature "Firefox Stync" I was so frustrated. Who designed this anyway? Pardon the rant but it obviously was not tested by end-users, judging from the huge volume of questions it generates.

Geoff,

Yes it may be rather, none intuitive & unclear on how Sync is intended to be used. The fact that it is penciled in for replacement rather than any further development suggests it has not been too successful.

If you read How do I set up Sync on my computer? it has a Part1 and Part2 referring to

• Part 1 = Set up Firefox Sync on a computer
• Part 2 = Get the easy setup code on another device

Those are the two devices the master device that is synced from, and the secondary device for backing up or syncing to.

• Part 3 = Connect your other device to your Sync account

Starts the sync process.

Note from

• How do I set up Sync on my computer?_how-much-of-my-data-is-synced

You can choose how your data is synchronized when you create your Sync account and whenever you add a device. When you set up Firefox Sync, click the Sync Options button at the bottom-left corner of the setup window to select one of these options:

   Merge this computer's data with my Sync data (default; recommended)
   Replace all data on this computer with my Sync data
   Replace all other devices with this computer's data