Library on External Drive - Setting up on a New Computer

This is the second time I've done this and the first time was a disaster, despite reading and reading on this topic.
I had a desktop. I kept all my music on an external hard drive, including the library. The path my iTunes was setup to use was E:\iTunes\iTunes Music. No problem.
Now I have a new laptop. I installed iTunes, plugged in the external drive, and changed the directory in my preferences to the same one as the previous computer.
What do I do next to get my library, which already exists in E:\iTunes, to be recognized by iTunes? I don't want to copy any music to the computer, I just want it to find the library on the external drive and use it as it is. It's very well organized, including playlists and smart playlists, and I don't want to lose it.
Anybody have a suggestion on the best way to make this work smoothly? Last time I tried this I ended up with a duplicate of each song in the library, and a bunch of half-full playlists. Took me forever to correct this.\
Any help would be appreciated.

Steve,
This should be relatively easy as long as you duplicate the paths from the old PC with the new PC.
If the music folders (Artist & Album) on ExHD were in the 'E:\iTunes\iTunes Music' path, then make sure that the new Laptop sees the ExHD as the
i exact same
path to the music. Just
i 'E:\iTunes\Artist\Album'
will not work, it will need to be
i 'E:\iTunes\iTunes Music\Artist\Album'
Once that is set up, with iTunes closed, make a copy of the old Laptop's 'iTunes Library.itl' file and replace the file of the same name in the new Laptop (usually in the '\My Music\iTunes' folder). This ITL file keeps all the absolute locations for your song files, as well as all the music meta-data.
Once you open the new Laptop's iTunes, you should see the exact same Library as before - no need to 'Add', 'Import' or perform any other process.
Post back if you have questions.

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Simply highlight and delete
But doing so it will also trash all playlists, data added, ratings, etc. Something the OP said about having to rename lots of files during a previous library rebuild suggests to me they may even be stored in WAV format. If the OP deletes them from the library all the labels will be lost, they will get added back with only file names as track information and they will have to be renamed again.
This will delete not only the reference to the file, but the library.itl file that Limnos refers to.
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Or, select the files on your ext drive, hold down OPTION and drag the files into iTunes. It will add them to your library, but leave the files on your external drive. Note that any new files you add directly to iTunes (like from the store) will be added to your default iTunes folder, not the external drive.
Well, yes, it will do it, essentially creating a brand new library that the OP will have to organize again vs. using the existing organization. My reservations about the need to rebuild the library from scratch still exist.
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