How to move itunes media to external drive

I'm running iTunes for Windows 10.6.3.25 and have 3000+ songs in the library. I'd like to move the music files to an external hard drive, without losing the dates added, plays, genres or the directory structure. I've already made a copy of all the folders and music files to my external drive (I've called it M: for Music), but now I need to tell iTunes to look there for the music and not at my laptop's D-drive. Changing the iTunes media folder in the Edit-Preferences-Advanced tab doesn't seem to have any effect on the existing songs.
Anyone out there with tips or advice?
Thanks
H-tac

Type "move itunes library" into the search bar at the top of this page or your favorite search engine and follow the instructions.

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