Quicken Backup (Part 2)

Laura,

That helped considerably. It is picking up the data from my O: drive which is a USB Memory stick connected to a 7-port hub. I had done a backup there. I also did a backup on my J: drive which is the Zip Drive. I have plenty of backups but they are all on removable media.

Since I reinstalled Quicken, I thought for sure I would be able to do a backup to a hard drive. But NOT SO.

I created a directory C:\Quicken Test. Got the same message as before "Unable to access the disk in drive C: Please make sure the drive is ready and the disk is not write protected."

So then I tried to another hard drive (an external hard drive). I created a directory at L:\Quicken Test\Test. Got the same message: Unable to access the disk in drive L: Please make sure the drive is ready and the disk is not write protected."

So it seems that I can only backup to a drive with removable media. I don't understand why everybody else can backup to a hard drive and I can't. It sure is puzzling.

I have never had a problem when running older versions of Quicken (which by the way I've been using for 14 years).

But, I've always backed up to a removable media. I have just now thought it would be much better to backup to one of my external hard drives.

You have way too many drives, memory sticks, Quicken data files. Simply your life!

Take this slowly... Most likely you don't have permissions to write to the specified drive, folder, share or whatever.

Let's start from the top, and proceed down every folder in the path you are trying to write to. Go to C: in Explorer. Right click on that and select Properties. Then click on the Security tab. What does it say? List out each group of user name and note the permissions for each one of them. Do you have permissions to write to that drive? I believe Vista has this: Click on Advanced and then Effective Permissions then on the Select button and type in your log in name then OK. This should give you a list of what /effective/ permission you have at this level (currently the drive level). Do you have write permission?

Continue down the hierarchy (if any) selecting subsequent folders and permissions. What you're trying to verify is that you can indeed write to that area. If you can't then that's what Quicken's complaining about.

Also try this: In Quicken select *File: File Operations: Copy* then attempt to copy your current opened Quicken data file to whatever path you are trying to write the backup to. If you can copy the Quicken data file interactively then the Quicken Backup file should also work. Essentially this is coming down to a permissions problem

Again, it's coming down to merely a question of do you have permissions to write to this area - plain and simple.

BTW: What user are you running as?

Don,

I'm not sure you intended to address this to me, but I'll take a shot at it.

It looks like you have an access permission problem, both here and with your backup issue.

There's a table in Windows that relates file type (e.g. ".qdf") to the default program that should be used to process that file type. I think that Web Connect files are type ".qfx".

When you uninstalled Quicken you probably deleted the Web Connect entry from the above table. Now, each time Quicken starts, it's detecting that the entry is missing and prompting you to add it back. However, this is a system table and you need administrator privileges to modify it (which you or the Quicken program probably don't have). So it looks like the table update is failing and that's why you keep getting the same prompt each time you open Quicken.

I'm brand new to Vista so take the following with a grain of salt.

The way I think you should handle Quicken under Vista is to install and run it under the same administrative account. Under Vista there is a mechanism called User Account Control (UAC). If UAC is enabled, and it should be, each time a program with administrative privileges tries to modify a system table Vista throws up a prompt screen asking you for permission to continue. In your "Web Connect" case you would give that permission, Vista would allow Quicken to update file type-default program association table and you'd never see the prompt again.

That's the way I think things "should" work. Unfortunately I'm not enough of an expert to deduce what's happening on your system or tell you how to correct it.

As an aside, let me speculate on why you can backup to removable devices and not to your hard drives. It may have to do with the type of file system. I suspect that your removable devices are formatted as FAT or FAT32 while your hard drives are formatted as NTFS. NTFS has security control while FAT and FAT32 don't. For example, I have two external hard drives connected via USB. One is formatted NTFS and it has the Security tab that Andrew DeFaria tells you about in his post; the other is formatted FAT32 and has no Security tab.

Sorry that I can't pinpoint your exact problem, but I hope the above helps.

Jerry

P.S. I had a heckuva time locating the file type association program in Vista. I finally found it under Control Panel -> Programs -> Default Programs -> "Make a file type always open a specific program". There's probably an easier way to get to it.

"Quicken is not currently the application configured for handling Web Connect data.

Would you like to make it the default application for any Web Connect data that you download from your financial institution's web site ?

Yes No

Any ideas how to get rid of this annoying pop up?

I've clicked no a dozen times and I've clicked yes a dozen times and it keeps asking me every time I open Quicken. I've never had that happen before.

Group or user names:

Authenticated Users SYSTEM Administrators (Don-PC\Administrators) Users (Don-PC\Users)

Okay. I am the only person in his house. I am the only one who uses this computer. So, which one do I change? Do I delete all of them except one? I am the administrator and when I first got the computer a couple weeks ago I named the computer "Don-PC".

So maybe one step at a time. Can you answer if I should allow "full control" to every group listed here or if I should delete all but one entry? I guess I got ahead of myself and I tried to allow full control to all of them.

Again, I am the only person who uses this computer.

Don and others,

John made an interesting observation here, namely that the problem might be an auxiliary file such as Q3.dir that Q2003 doesn't have permission to create.

You might want to check to see if Q2003 put Q3.dir on one of your removable drives when you made your backup. If so, that may be a clue to where it's trying and failing to put Q3.dir on your hard drives.

Jerry

Don wrote: Laura,

That helped considerably. It is picking up the data from my O: drive which is a USB Memory stick connected to a 7-port hub. You have way too many drives, memory sticks, Quicken data files. Simply your life!

I had done a backup there. I also did a backup on my J: drive which is the Zip Drive. I have plenty of backups but they are all on removable media.

Since I reinstalled Quicken, I thought for sure I would be able to do a backup to a hard drive. But NOT SO.

Take this slowly... Most likely you don't have permissions to write to the specified drive, folder, share or whatever.

Let's start from the top, and proceed down every folder in the path you are trying to write to. Go to C: in Explorer. Right click on that and select Properties. Then click on the Security tab. What does it say? List out each group of user name and note the permissions for each one of them. Do you have permissions to write to that drive? I believe Vista has this: Click on Advanced and then Effective Permissions then on the Select button and type in your log in name then OK. This should give you a list of what effective permission you have at this level (currently the drive level). Do you have write permission?

Continue down the hierarchy (if any) selecting subsequent folders and permissions. What you're trying to verify is that you can indeed write to that area. If you can't then that's what Quicken's complaining about.

Also try this: In Quicken select File: File Operations: Copy then attempt to copy your current opened Quicken data file to whatever path you are trying to write the backup to. If you can copy the Quicken data file interactively then the Quicken Backup file should also work. Essentially this is coming down to a permissions problem

I created a directory C:\Quicken Test. Got the same message as before "Unable to access the disk in drive C: Please make sure the drive is ready and the disk is not write protected."

So then I tried to another hard drive (an external hard drive). I created a directory at L:\Quicken Test\Test. Got the same message: Unable to access the disk in drive L: Please make sure the drive is ready and the disk is not write protected."

So it seems that I can only backup to a drive with removable media. I don't understand why everybody else can backup to a hard drive and I can't. It sure is puzzling.

Again, it's coming down to merely a question of do you have permissions to write to this area - plain and simple.

BTW: What user are you running as?

-- Andrew DeFaria If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?

Jerry,

I uninstalled Quicken again and then reinstalled. That took care of the problem. It does not pop up a screen asking about Web Connect. All is working fine now.

Thanks.

Don,

I think I'm beginning to see what's going on with this Vista UAC stuff.

When you add a user account you get 2 user IDs, one with standard privileges and one with administrative privileges, both associated with the same logon.

When you log on you get the permissions of the standard user. If you try to do something for which you (or the program you're executing) don't have permission, you get dynamically upgraded to the permissions of the administrative user for the duration of the task at hand. Whether or not you get a prompt before this "upgrade" takes place depends on whether UAC is turned on (prompt) or off (no prompt) for the current user account.

In your case it looks like neither your standard nor administrative user ID has the necessary permissions to (a) add the Web Connect file type association or (b) create or update whatever item, perhaps file Q3.dir, it requires for its backup.

You can try to set all your permissions properly for Quicken in the Vista environment, but I think it's hopeless or at least unwise. I think only the Quicken installation programs (for versions of Quicken that support Vista) know exactly what permissions are required, and for what files and directories, for both your standard and administrative user IDs. This is not an easy task; Quicken Online Backup, which I used until I upgraded to Vista, still isn't supported for Vista.

I suggest you upgrade to a more recent Quicken version. I have Q2006 H&B on Vista and have no problem backing up to my NTFS hard drive. You can probably get Q2006 pretty cheap on eBay.

Learning to live with or laboriously patch the type of annoyances you're currently encountering is another option.

HTH

Jerry

Just curious, what did you do differently?

- tinker with access privileges?

- remember to run Quicken Online Update after you reinstalled?

- repeat-and-pray-harder method?

Do your backups to hard drive now work?

Jerry,

Thanks for your input. Everything is working fine now. I gave myself permission to write to my external hard drives as suggested by Andrew DeFaria and now I can backup to those external hard drives. So far, everything is working fine. NOW, if there just was a way to stop all those pop-up screens to "ALLOW" myself to do various tasks. !!!! Maybe someone on here has some inside information about that.

Thanks again.

How about your internal hard drive?

I did not mess with my internal hard drive (C:) because I don't want to do any backups there anyhow. I only backup to external hard drives in the event the internal hard drive would become defective. Ha. I "did" give myself permission to write there (C:) but I didn't want to mess up anything to test a backup to drive C: and get unwanted files there that I don't really want. Everything is working the way I wanted it so I am happy now except for all those "ALLOW" screens that I must approve myself to do different tasks. I live alone and I am the only one here so it is silly to have to approve myself to do anything that I'm doing or to "ALLOW" myself to do any job I want to do. I hope Microsoft took into account that there are a lot of single people using their operating systems.

And how would the computer know that?

The computer doesn't know nor care that you are the only one using it.

The question here is "Does the currently logged in user have write permission?". I didn't say to change nor delete anything. I did say something about Effective Permissions under the advanced tab. Go back and re-read.

That depends on what you are trying to accomplish. All you are really trying to accomplish is grant write access to the current logged in user. That's where Effective Permissions comes in...

And...??? Listen dude I'm not gonna be holding my breath here. It's your problem not mine. If you do not wish to divulge what happened or feel the need to give out what happened in bits and pieces then I'm out of here and have fun with your little problem there... Geeze. I'm not really surprised you're having difficulties.

Totally irrelevant. The computer does not know that you are the only one using the computer - nor does it care.

Well what da ya know!

The answers are simple when you look at the problem logically...

Must have been the last option for sure! I just wonder how I do so well with computers as an atheist!

The "table" you spoke of is the registry. You were probably correct by assuming that Quicken, run as an unprivileged user, was not able to write to the registry to adjust the problem. This is normally due to the fact that it writes it to the HKLM (Hash Key Local Machine in Registry speak) portion of the registry thus effecting "all users". Things that effect "all users" need to be done by an administrator (or perhaps power user). Intuit shouldn't be doing that in a Vista world where users run as non-administrators but you can see why that might be helpful. Assume Mr. Right and Ms. Right (AKA Ms. Always Right!) both use the same computer and Quicken and don't share a Quicken data base. Both would want web connect to work.

Somewhere along the line this web connect association got deleted and Quicken, running as Don's unprivileged user, wants to fix the problem but can't.

Now Don reinstalls Quicken, probably as Admin, and the web connect association is correctly set up.

I highly doubt that. When you install Vista an Administrator user is created. This is the same as the root user in Unix terms. You also create a non administrative user that you normally log in as (Let's assume Don's regular, non administrative user is named... well... Don).

Not quite. You don't automatically get upgraded in permissions. If you did then what would be the point of running as a non admin? Rather you have to OK the action. Now as I understand Vista they made is to that it was supposedly non-intrusive for the user in that you just have to click OK (and that dialog box is specially handled else all virus software would be doing it!). You are then cleared to do that specific task at hand but no others. So if you need to make 15 changes to 15 different privileged things you get 15 prompts. Definition of annoying.

Look at Linux desktops for how they do it. They have similar needs - occasionally you need to "become root" (or in Vista get admin privilege) to do something. They are prompted for root's password to prove they are an admin. The credentials are cached for a period of time (like 5 or 10 minutes) such that if another request comes in shortly (i.e. you have those 15 privileged things to do) they are automatically cleared.

Administrative access should be enough. I didn't recall Don saying he was prompted by UAC for privilege elevation...

It's merely a matter of understanding ACLs and the current logged in user's privilege level. This applies to disk drives, folders or files (including the registry file).

As you probably read, he already solved his "Unable to backup to a disk drive" problem - without resorting to spending more money...

Or gain an education and understanding of the underlying principals of computers...

Group or user names:

Authenticated Users SYSTEM Administrators (Don-PC\Administrators) Users (Don-PC\Users)

Okay. I am the only person in his house. And how would the computer know that?

I am the only one who uses this computer. The computer doesn't know nor care that you are the only one using it.

So, which one do I change? Do I delete all of them except one? I am the administrator and when I first got the computer a couple weeks ago I named the computer "Don-PC".

The question here is "Does the currently logged in user have write permission?". I didn't say to change nor delete anything. I did say something about Effective Permissions under the advanced tab. Go back and re-read.

So maybe one step at a time. Can you answer if I should allow "full control" to every group listed here or if I should delete all but one entry? That depends on what you are trying to accomplish. All you are really trying to accomplish is grant write access to the current logged in user. That's where Effective Permissions comes in...

I guess I got ahead of myself and I tried to allow full control to all of them.

And...??? Listen dude I'm not gonna be holding my breath here. It's your problem not mine. If you do not wish to divulge what happened or feel the need to give out what happened in bits and pieces then I'm out of here and have fun with your little problem there... Geeze. I'm not really surprised you're having difficulties.

Again, I am the only person who uses this computer.

Totally irrelevant. The computer does not know that you are the only one using the computer - nor does it care.

-- Andrew DeFaria When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.