Backup Question

RE: When selecting files for my weekly back-up to a CD

There are many file extensions listed for the account I'm trying to back up ( .QSD; .QEL; .IDX; .QDF; .QPH; .QTX; .OFXLOG.DAT) Do I need to back them all up?, or can I just back up a few? I have Q2004, and Windows XP, and have been using Quicken for ~10 years. I think that the QDF file is the important one, but I can't remember for sure....any help. Thanks in advance.

Reply to
Bob
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It's safest to use the backup function in quicken to ensure you get everything. Quicken will backup all necessary files ot the directory path you specify. Then, cut the copy of that directory over to CD. You can also use this method to maintain a series of backups by renaming the backup folder to include the date ofbackup. E.g. use quicken to backup to c:\qbackup\curbackup then rename it to c:\qbackup\20050418_qbackup

and then cut the whole c:\qbackup directory to CD every week. That way if you botch something bigtime in quicken, you've got backup files you can go back to prior to the botch. 8-)

Reply to
Todd H.

You should back them all up. Each file contains different parts of your overall Quicken data.

The .OFXLOG.DAT file may not be needed, but it is generally small anyway.

Peter

Reply to
P Ruetz

Some considerations:

1.) What you are backing up is a file (or, more accurately, a fileset); not an "account" (a *useful* Quicken fileset contains one or more "accounts").

2.) If you use Quicken to create the basic "backup", you will always be insured that every file in the Quicken data fileset will be backed up. One simple way to do this is to do your Quicken backup to one or more folders on your hard drive - naming the folders to indicate something about the backup ... like Monday, Tuesday ..., or January, February, .... Anytime after Quicken creates the backup you tell it to, you can then use Windows (or any backup software) to put that "backup" on external media.

3.) Quicken itself will create a backup for you automatically every 7 days (or so); Quicken will keep anywhere from 1 to 9 of those backups (based on your choice) in a folder named BACKUP in the folder where your Quicken data fileset resides. It may be useful to backup the BACKUP folder to your offline media along with any backups you make yourself.

4.) If you use Quicken "Home Inventory" then a "Quicken Backup" will not backup your home inventory file (as you may have noticed, since Home Inventory always asks you if you want to backup). If you want your Home Inventory file safely backed up, you should use some combination of what I suggested in #2, and/or a direct backup to your offline media. To say it another way: to backup all the files that Quicken needs if you use Home Inventory, and if you use Quicken to create your initial backup ... you must do two separate backups.

(The default name of a Quicken Home Inventory file is QHI.IDB).

Reply to
John Pollard

You should backup the various files the other responders told you to back up, as it is safest, but I don't think it is really necessary. I work in an accounting office, and clients frequently email us their Quicken files to utilize to prepare tax returns, etc. They generally email us just the actual Quicken file (just one file, and it is NOT a backup) and it has never failed to work. Note that I am talking from actual experience using lots of Quicken files prepared with different Quicken versions (we use H&B 2005), not speculation or theory. You can easily test by copying your Quicken file to a CD, and taking to another computer with Quicken installed. You will find that your file will load just fine, and will have all the information you had on your original computer.

Reply to
Z Man

You are absolutely wrong: you will not have "all the information you had".

Yes, you can open a Quicken "file" with only one Windows file (the ".QDF" file), Quicken will recreate *some* of the missing files and you will have much of your data present. But you will not have it all. (Question: if what you suggest were true, why in the world would Quicken have all those files in its fileset, and why in the world would Quicken waste time and space backing them up?)

You will not have any of your price history that is not in investment account transactions (many of whose prices are not the prices you want for reporting): if you have been recording prices for securities whose prices are not available online (even from Yahoo), such as municipal bonds, you will be very unhappy to lose all those prices. Much of your online access information will be missing, including the date/time you last downloaded from each fi, meaning your next download will be treated as the first download with lots of transactions you do not want ... and you will have to setup online access again before you can download. If you have done any tax planning, that will be lost. If you have done any retirement planning, that will be lost. If you have setup any loans, they will be lost. You may experience problems with Alerts (Quicken crashed the first time I tried to get it to Setup Alerts having a fileset open that started with only a qdf file).

It is possible that other capabilities would be affected, I do not use all of Quicken's capabilities and I did not test any H&B features.

The bottom line is that I think you should always plan to backup every file in your Quicken fileset.

It is good to know that if something terrible happened and you only had your .qdf file, you could recover a great amount of your data; but I can't understand why anyone would intentionally put themselves in that position.

Footnote: it appears that Quicken also keeps a record of the names of some/all of the non-qdf files in the qdf file. If you use Windows to copy just your qdf file to a new name, the open that qdf file, Quicken will recreate the missing files using the originals! But if those original files are not present, their data is lost. And, perhaps worse - since you might not recognize right away that it had happened - if you had those original files present when you tried to use your qdf-only backup, but those files were not current, or did not match the data in your qdf file; you could end up with a lot of garbage whose source would then be difficult to discover.

Reply to
John Pollard

I simply name my folders as Backup-2005-04-20 (for today) and I get a nice, ordered list of backups already ordered by date with no chance of duplication (except in those rare days that I really mess around and take multiple backups).

Reply to
Mike B

Why bother with the intermediate step of naming the folder "curbackup" and then renaming? I just backup straight to the folder with today's date.

Reply to
Mike B

Good question. Probably force of habit? If not presently, some version of quicken in the past I used wouldn't create folders automagically that didn't already exist...which was quite lame of it. Maybe I haven't tried since i went with 2004.

Reply to
Todd H.

Well, worse has been said of me :)

Seriously, I cannot say that I have comprehensively tested every single piece of data. In fact, I have not tested anything. In my original post, I stated that in my accounting office we are generally furnished with only the one data file, and we use that file to prepare tax returns and financial analysis. For these purposes, we need only transactional data. Having worked with dozens (if not more) client files over the years, I can say with confidence that all the transactions are there. We don't use our clients' pricing history, as this would be of no value to us. Thus, I don't know if this data is included in the qdf file. You are a known authority in this venue, so if you say historical prices are in a separate file, I will take your word for it. Thanks for setting the record straight.

Reply to
Z Man

I tried to clarify that I have no argument that you can get a great deal of data from just a QDF file: indeed, I have no doubt that you could get the transactional data you need for your purposes from just a QDF file, my own tests have borne that out, and I think I have already posted that some time in the past. My only point for this thread was that people who are looking to backup their Quicken data would be ill served if they only backed up their QDF file; they want *all* their data, not just their "transactions". I wanted to catch people's attention who might think to save space or time by following your implication, I was not trying to say anything adverse about you.

Reply to
John Pollard

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