Q-2007 on Vista - continuous prompt for data file

Hi, Andrew.

If you use Windows Explorer to navigate to the folder where your data file is and click on Andrew.qdf (or whatever your filename is), does Quicken open with your data loaded?

My shortcut just points to the qw.exe file and it always starts up with my data file. If I right-click on the shortcut and choose Run as Administrator, the only difference I see is that I have to provide the Administrator password. But then, I've never used Personal Plus, so I don't know if it is different. Is that a non-US version of Quicken?

I agree. Vista protects certain folders (C:\ and C:\Program Files, for example), but some programs still try to write their executable or data files there. Could this be an issue with your Quicken installation?

RC

Hi RC,

Thanks for replying.....

Excellent thought - I get the same results. Double clicking my data file fires up Quicken, but then hits me with the same 2 prompts.

I guess it must be - I'm in Australia and Personal Plus is just the standard vanilla version of Quicken with some extra functionality for tax and shares tracking I think.

Another thought has occurred to me.... My data file is stored on a network drive on a NAS device I have. The directory is mapped using a UNC type mapping, no drive letter. ie \\N5200\Data\Quicken Data

I might try moving the file to a local drive on my PC and see if that fixes it, but if it does it seems to defeat the purpose of having all my data stored safely on a RAIDed NAS device!!

Andrew

OK, progress - of sorts.

I copied my data files to a local directory on the machine that Quicken runs on and that seems to have cured the problem. (or at least its changed the behaviour!)

After pointing Quicken to the data files on the local drive after firing it up, and then closing it down again - a subsequent invocation didn't nag me for file locations or about being a new or existing user anymore. It then nagged me for registration details which I did ages ago so at least the behaviour has changed.

It now appears to be a problem with Quicken locating data files on UNC mapped network drives.

Has anyone come across this issue in the past?

Regards,

Andrew

Hi, Andrew.

Congratulations on your progress - of sorts. ;^}

We may be at the limits of my ability to help. I know nothing of Personal Plus, but my guess is that this is not where the problem lies.

As I often say, I'm one guy with one computer and no net but the Internet. I've seen UNC and NAS and such things mentioned, but have only the vaguest of ideas about how to work with them. But there are others here who should be able to help. My guess is that you are on the right track.

RC

I agree with RC White that you are on the right path. UNC may or may not be working properly for your version of Quicken. The way I handle my Quicken files is to have shortcuts pointing at the *.qdf files of their data sets, and they are local. Then I have set Quicken to always warn me to do a backup when I quit,and the backup path is to a drive on another machine.

HTH

Thanks to Han and RC for your feedback. I have found a way to make this work.

This seems to be an issue with UNC mapping of shares as opposed to the usual practice of assigning a drive letter.

I have been able to solve my problem by mapping a network drive using a letter to my data directory on my NAS device. (eg Z: is now \\NAS device\Data Share\Quicken Directory)

Having done that, Quicken now opens up with no nagging and goes directly to my data file on the Z drive.

It seems that we have a bug in Quicken in that it won't remember a data file location if it is accessed solely as a UNC mapped share, we appear to have to map it as a regular network share and give it a drive letter.

My guess is that this isn't a "Personal Plus" issue I suspect this behaviour is common to all versions of Quicken, but I can't be certain since this is the only copy I have to experiment with!

I think it's always been that way.

And I think you're barking up the wrong tree when you call this a bug; Intuit has made it clear that Quicken is not designed to be used over a network, so failure to act like an application that was designed to work over a network is a design decision, not a bug.

I had mine working that way about a year ago. I was getting occasional warnings from Windows about delayed write failures. I decided that it was not reliable enough for me to trust with my financial data. A failed write operation could easily result in corruption of the Quicken data.

Jim