From: charliech on
I have a question on backups.

I manually backup my Quicken files after each use to an external
harddrive (I'm aware of the problems with Quicken 2010 not overwriting
the previous backups - and that it is be worked on by Intuit
personnel).

My question is with the automatic backups created by Quicken upon
exiting the program. I have it set to keep 3 copies. But when I
updated to Q2010, it creates one file per backup vs. the individual
filenames that it created in past versions (I think!). In looking in
the Quicken Backup Folder on my internal harddrive, where the
automatic backups are stored, I see two versions of the backup files.

It appears Q2010 did not delete the backups from the previous version
(with filetypes of eml, idx, npc, qdf, qel, qph, otx). The backups
after installing Q2010 have the filetype of (filename-date-13-01-47
(these numbers change in backups).qdf-backup. Is it safe to go ahead
and delete the pre-Q2010 backup files -or- are they used for something
in Q2010.

I have had Q2010 installed for over a month and don't know if I really
need the files from prior to the installation (I would guess not, but
wanted to check here with the experts prior to taking action).

Thanks for any insights.

Charlie
From: R. C. White on
Hi, Charlie.

> I have a question on backups.

Me, too!

> My question is with the automatic backups created by Quicken upon
> exiting the program. I have it set to keep 3 copies.

I left it at the default, 5 copies. But now BACKUP has 8 copies of the
new-style backups, plus all the old-style ones. Since I still have plenty
of disk space, I'm kind of waiting to see how all this plays out before
deleting the excess copies.

In the BACKUP folder, my 5 weekly old-style backup sets are about 40 MB each
for 200 MB total. The latest set is dated 19/16/09; I installed Q2010 on
10/20/09. There are 5 new-stile files, named
QDATA-26Oct2009-14-34-14.QDF-backup, plus *28Oct*, *31Oct*, *02Nov* and
*03Nov*; each is about 45 MB for a total of about 226 MB. Then there are 3
more sets named QDATA-58-05Nov2009-20-02-28.QDF-backup, plus *58-08Nov* and
*58-11Nov*, 45 MB each, total about 136 MB. So, in 3 weeks time, I've
accumulated nearly 400 MB in 8 automatic backups! The timing pattern is
inscrutable; it used to be every seven days (9/18/09, 9/25/09, 10/2/09,
10/9/09 and 10/16/09), but now it started 26Oct, 28Oct, 31Oct, 02Nov,
03Nov - and THEN it added the "-58-" before the dates 05Nov, 08Nov and
11Nov. The "14-34-14" part of each backup filename is apparently the
time-of-day, indicating 2:34:14 pm for that first one and 8:02:28 pm for the
58-05Nov file. I have no idea as to the significance of the "58" and "58-1"
numbering system. MAYBE the new pattern is something like "every seventh
time that Quicken is closed", and since I often run it more than once a day,
this creates a new backup file about every 3rd day - but I'm guessing about
that.

Meanwhile, the other folder where I keep my manual backups is growing even
faster! My last manual backup fileset for Q2009 was QDATA.* on 10/20/09;
the 4 files in the set (QDF, QEL. QPH and IDX) total about 40 MB. The first
Q2010 manual backup, also on 10/20, was QDATA.QDF-backup and was 45 MB. The
second new manual backup, also on 10/20, was QDATA-1.QDF-backup; another 45
MB. Backups 2.QDF, 3.QDF, 4.QDF, 5.QDF and 6.QDF were all also on 10/20/09
and were 45 MB EACH! So a single day's manual backups under Q2010 took over
300 MB for 7 individual backup files! From there on, there have been
multiple backup files each day.

The manual backup numbering system continued predictably until
QDATA-58.QDF-backup on 11/4/2009, still growing slowly from just over 45 MB
each for the 59 files. The next manual backup, on 11/5/09, got a new
numbering scheme; it is QDATA-58-1.QDF.backup; it was up to 45,308 KB. The
numbering scheme continued with files 58-2 and 58-3 also on 11/5/09; my
latest as of now is QDATA-58-29.QDF-backup, dated 4:13 pm 11/12/09, my 5th
manual backup of the day, at 45,420 KB.

Whew! That's a lot of backups, both automatic and manual! Obviously, I can
delete most of them, but why should I have to do that manually? In almost
20 years of using Quicken, I never had to police these manually before.

I haven't yet done a One Step Update today. I see a couple of posts here
suggesting that I probably will find Release R 3 in my OSU, which changes
the backup system once again. I hope the new system is an improvement.

I'm off to run OSU now...

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc(a)grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Using Quicken Deluxe 2010 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)

<charliech(a)email.com> wrote in message
news:5gqpf51cbtej0frercntsr5ufp4oga0kat(a)4ax.com...
> I have a question on backups.
>
> I manually backup my Quicken files after each use to an external
> harddrive (I'm aware of the problems with Quicken 2010 not overwriting
> the previous backups - and that it is be worked on by Intuit
> personnel).
>
> My question is with the automatic backups created by Quicken upon
> exiting the program. I have it set to keep 3 copies. But when I
> updated to Q2010, it creates one file per backup vs. the individual
> filenames that it created in past versions (I think!). In looking in
> the Quicken Backup Folder on my internal harddrive, where the
> automatic backups are stored, I see two versions of the backup files.
>
> It appears Q2010 did not delete the backups from the previous version
> (with filetypes of eml, idx, npc, qdf, qel, qph, otx). The backups
> after installing Q2010 have the filetype of (filename-date-13-01-47
> (these numbers change in backups).qdf-backup. Is it safe to go ahead
> and delete the pre-Q2010 backup files -or- are they used for something
> in Q2010.
>
> I have had Q2010 installed for over a month and don't know if I really
> need the files from prior to the installation (I would guess not, but
> wanted to check here with the experts prior to taking action).
>
> Thanks for any insights.
>
> Charlie

From: R. C. White on
OK, I'm back already.

The OSU Wizard downloaded some transactions, but did not offer me R3 - or
anything else from Quicken. I even ran it twice. So I still haven't seen
the new backup system that Andrew mentioned.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc(a)grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Using Quicken Deluxe 2010 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)

"R. C. White" <rc(a)grandecom.net> wrote in message
news:a9KdnQx1m_hN4mDXnZ2dnUVZ_vidnZ2d(a)posted.grandecom...
> Hi, Charlie.
>
>> I have a question on backups.
>
> Me, too!
>
>> My question is with the automatic backups created by Quicken upon
>> exiting the program. I have it set to keep 3 copies.
<SNIP - no use repeating myself>

From: Margaret on
R. C. White wrote:
> OK, I'm back already.
>
> The OSU Wizard downloaded some transactions, but did not offer me R3 -
> or anything else from Quicken. I even ran it twice. So I still haven't
> seen the new backup system that Andrew mentioned.

Me either.

Re file sizes: I noticed yesterday that my ~20MB data file (in Q2010)
had grown to 29MB! When I copied it, the new file was only 19MB. It
appears that packaging all data in one file causes significant wasted
space. It's not that disk space is an issue, as I have *far* more than
I'll use for quite a while. But ... I wonder how that bloat may affect
possible of data corruption....

Regards,

Margaret
From: Oilcan on
My current file size is about 828 MB - but I do use the Attachment
functionality extensively. My last 2009 back-up was 802 MB (October 13)
with 765 MB being attachments files within Quicken (3,002 files). My
automatic back-up's are dated Oct 25, 29, Nov 5, 9 and 11th. It does
look like it is only keeping the five most recent copies. I do not do
manual backups and I create a Quicken Online Backup file once per week.
I also keep my session open almost all day.

The only account that I really have some performance issues (opens
slowly from Portfolio) is my 401(k) which has about 5500 transactions
going back to September 1981. Even so it eventually opens at 32
seconds...but that is a different topic.

Oilcan

-----Original Message-----
From: Margaret [mailto:twokatmew(a)gmailx.invalid]
Posted At: Friday, November 13, 2009 10:42 AM
Posted To: alt.comp.software.financial.quicken
Conversation: Q2010 Automatic Backup Files
Subject: Re: Q2010 Automatic Backup Files

R. C. White wrote:
> OK, I'm back already.
>
> The OSU Wizard downloaded some transactions, but did not offer me R3 -

> or anything else from Quicken. I even ran it twice. So I still
haven't
> seen the new backup system that Andrew mentioned.

Me either.

Re file sizes: I noticed yesterday that my ~20MB data file (in Q2010)
had grown to 29MB! When I copied it, the new file was only 19MB. It
appears that packaging all data in one file causes significant wasted
space. It's not that disk space is an issue, as I have *far* more than
I'll use for quite a while. But ... I wonder how that bloat may affect
possible of data corruption....

Regards,

Margaret