Quicken file on network

Andy wrote in news:c951d6d0-de43-469a-a77d- snipped-for-privacy@a23g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:

The way I work it is by backing up to a networked drive (on a different 'puter). I have no experience trying to do what you are suggesting. Certainly if you were to use a wireless connection, I think it would be like inviting trouble to access your file set remotely. On the other hand, you could use secure remote access to use Qicken on a remote computer. For instance GotomyPC (monthly fees) or Logmein (could be used in the free version).

I tried running Quicken on my home network. I ran it for a few days. During that time, I regularly got Windows pop-ups warning about delayed write failures. I didn't notice any lost data, but I decided that it wasn't worth the risk of corrupting my data.

The network is used regularly for file sharing, printer sharing, along with video and audio streaming. It works very reliably for those purposes. Quicken was the only application that showed any problems with it.

If you do decide to try it, I'd like to hear your results.

Thanks for the reply. My current solution is in fact to use remote desktop, however using Quicken locally instead of remotely would give slightly better performance, and free up the remote computer for my wife. Terminal Services Remote Programs feature of Windows Server 2008 would be another good solution, however I don't plan on running Windows Server.

Thanks for your response, this is exactly the kind of feedback I wanted. BTW what version of Quicken were you running. Unless I get an overwhelming response of people saying they don't have any problems, I don't think I'm going to try it myself, based on your response alone. Obviously most of my usage is on my desktop (the original installation). What I may do, is continue to use Remote Desktop for short sessions on my laptop, and if I plan on using it for a longer session, using SyncToy to sync the quicken file(s) before and after running it on my laptop (the second installation).

Andy,

I have long wanted to do something like this but Quicken seems to be implemented assuming a single client connection to the database. To overcome this I have considered using a script to launch Quicken that will first "check out" the files to the local computer before editing. Then have the script do a "check in" when it's done. I'm using quotes around check out/in because it isn't real CM. My thinking is that real problems could happen if two Quicken clients were reading/writing to the same file set at a given time.

I think your terminal server idea is the safest approach.

Scott

Andy wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@z38g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:

One alternative approach is to put the data files on a flash/thumbdrive that you carry with you all the time anyway.

Another is running Quicken on one computer and always backing your data up to the other. Then fairly simple syncing software should be able to sync backup and data files, but you do have to do that unless you want to restore an older backup.

The way I do this works excellently: I have the Quicken files stored on my remote server, with a drive letter mapped on my desktop PC. Then, I made the files available offline (search Microsoft for how to make files available offline). What this does is actively works with a temporary local copy on your client and simultaneously keeps the one on the server updated. Works like a charm. Then, anytime I am not at home, I can remote desktop into the server and load Quicken there or my wife can load Quicken on her computer using the same configuration (assuming I didn't forget and leave Quicken up on my desktop, in which case an error pops up that it cannot find the file),

My config is Quicken 2008 Premier with a gigabit LAN between server and desktop.

Andy - I have been doing this successfully for at least 3-4 years. I have a file server (ie. underpowered PC) in my basement which remains powered up continuously. I have two other networked desktop PCs from which I access the server data file. I have never had any file corruption issues. If I mistakenly leave quicken running on one PC, and try to access from the other, I just get some message that the file is unavailable.

By the way, I always do my backups to the local PC I'm using. This way my primary data file is on the server and my backups are on the two other machines. To do the backups more easily, you can create an identically named back-up folder on the two remote PCs - I use c:\quicken backups\. This way when you go to back up to this folder once, it will default to that folder on the current PC, no matter which PC you're using.

I've been very happy with this set-up.

Pete

If this is working for you then you are either extremely lucky or your haven't discovered the corruption in your database yet. You see a Quicken file is a database. Information is stored in files but the organization of the database and the relationships between the various datasets in the database are contained in the DBMS - not in the file system. Essentially you have a big blob of data.

Offline temporary files only know about things in containers called files. It merely senses, "hey something in this file changed therefore this file, as a whole, has changed".

Even in a file by file basis it's pretty easy to demonstrate how the above can really mess you up. Let's assume that the Quicken database is extremely simple, just one flat file for one check register. Further let's assume that your Quicken database is on your server, client1 is your wife's laptop and client2 is your laptop. Your wife opens Quicken and so do you. Since you say your using offline files then you have a copy of the Quicken database on your laptop and your wife does too.

Now your wife goes in and notices that a transaction in the check register of 2 months ago was wrong. So she corrects it. Meantime you enter a transaction to the end of the file representing a check you wrote today.

Ok, as they say - it's reconciliation time! Both you and your wife now attempts to update the server. Who's update wins? Your's? Or your wifes? (Typically it's the last guy who writes the file). If you write last you overwrite your wife's change and if she writes last then she overwrites your change.

You see the file system cannot reconcile or merge the two different sets of changes because the file system has no idea of the structure of the data within the file. And and even if it did, if you and your wife changed the same record (You're wife changed check #101 to be $100 and you changed it to be $200) then who's change takes precedence?

I submit to you that if the above is truly working for you then you've just been lucky. The mere fact that we need to add in a highly complex database in which large blobs are stored into one larger file contain only increases the chance of the above to cause corruption.

Andrew DeFaria wrote in news:47f82f08$0$89388$815e3792 @news.qwest.net:

This is why I would be very hesitant to do what the OP proposes. However, IF (and it is a big if) He can guarantee that only one person will use his Quicken and Quicken data, and he will not accidentally run QUicken on 2 machines at the same time on the same data, then I do think it is possible to do what he wants. I still would not do it, because it seems much more secure in terms of maintaining data integrity to keep the data close to the processor and RAM to lessen the chance of bits and bytes straying and getting lost. But, networks are now certainly as fast as writing to 5

Backups are your friends (always). And it is amazing - saw an ad for DVD writables for 22 cents a piece (4.7 GB). I remember how wonderful it was when the price of floppies dropped to $1 a piece (1.2 MB).

Do not, repeat DO NOT, try this with the abomniation known as Microsoft Windows Home Server. Your data WILL be corrupted.

That's why I proposed a check in/out scheme to enforce only one user at a time. I wonder if there are easy to use tools for Windows already available for this type of usage?

Scott

"Scott Lindner" wrote in news:vdCdnbyzk9UPTmXanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

I would not trust Windows tools for this purpose, since it is my financial data that are at stake. It is easy for me, since I am the only one in the house who "does" our Quicken data. (Spouse does a non- profit's on her machine, using an ancient version of Quicken). Therefore, it's just I who has to remember which version of the data I accessed from where. I keep daily backups on an external drive. Occasionally I weed out excess file sets.

True. It's hard to trust Windows for much, but I think I was referring to something entirely different than you may have inferred. I'm talking about a CM tool for check in and check out. I do not believe any version of windows has such a thing. The closest Microsoft product that has this capability that I'm aware of is SharePoint and that's overkill for this purpose. I was thinking of some sort of software development tool for check in and check out, but there may be something more appropriate for this intended use.

Scott

"Scott Lindner" wrote in news:CJadncHcMu2QQGXanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Sorry, I don't know what you mean by CM tool, or check in and out.

I have been using Quicken from client machines - 2 laptops and 2 desktops - accessing a single data file on a remote fileserver via a mapped drive letter (Debian Linux running Samba) for over 3 years. This system works excellent - I can access the file either wirelessly or via wired network and the file is always up to date. Also, by using VPN connection to my home network I can access the data file from anywhere in the world. The real benefit of this system is the ease of backing up all my files on the server per a rigorous backup schedule and never having to worry about which computer I was using when I did my last Quicken reconciliation, etc.

There is one quirk with a mapped network drive in Quicken 2008. When I boot my computer and open Quicken, if I have not deliberately browsed to the mapped drive yet, Quicken "forgets" that I have an existing/ default Qdata file and prompts me as if I am a new user at which point I have to point Quicken to the location of the file. If however, I browse to the network drive before opening Quicken, it remembers my default file and opens it as usual. This did not happen in older versions of Quicken (e.g. 2003, 2005). Anyone else notice this quirk?

BTW, my QDF file is now 23 MB and climbing dating back to 1998. I never have reduced the size - anyone with some objective reason as to the benefits of reducing the file size?

Sure, it's not really that hard to write a simple checkout/checkin set of scripts to start Quicken and make sure that only one person has access to Quicken at a time. Hell I'm in CM (Configuration Management)!

Bits/Bytes don't stray nor get lost. The very real issue here is what happens when an application wishes to write a file over the network? How does it know the write happened? It's a difficult question - more difficult than you think. You see you send the write out to the other system and then what? Well wait for a response. The questions are: How long do you wait? And what do you do if you've waited as long as you determined should be sufficient and still have not received an answer from the remote system?

Sun, when implementing NFS (Networked File System) addressed this problem but providing two solutions, called a "hard mount" and a "soft mount". When a file system from another machine is mounted you tell the OS whether you want a "hard mount" or a "soft mount". Hard mounts mean when a read/write happens to the NFS mounted file system the read/write will block until the remote machine responds the data was actually put to the disk drive. Now that remote machine can go down... and back up... and the read/write will indeed continue! If you're on a Unix system and writing to a file over a hard NFS mount you might see a warning saying "remote server not responding - still trying".

Soft mounts mean time out after a configured amount of time and give up. The problem here is that now you know you might have inconsistent or corrupted data as the write you were trying to do didn't complete.

With Windows, remote file systems are implemented under the Server Message Block protocol or SMB. And as far as I can tell SMB doesn't offer hard mounts - only soft ones. So if you see a message saying failed to write on a remote file server then you've just gotten corrupted data.

My understanding is that there is a service pack(?) for Windows Home Server that address many (most) of these problems.

(BTW: I implemented Windows Home Server using Fedora!)

Yes it's called the command prompt. Write a .cmd (i.e. the new .bat!) script to simply check for the existence of a file indicating somebody's using your Quicken database. If not then create that file yourself and start Quicken. After Quicken exits your script simply removes that sentential file.