Back in the day, the paradigm for saving Office files required an explicit save (or a auto-save after a certain time delay). As far a I recall most pr ogram worked that way. Thus the warning each time you exited a program - Do you want to save .....
However, Quicken updated the file set (now one big file) each time you ente red or corrected a record. (And the records were flushed to disk pretty qui ckly.) That is why your data is very resilient to instances when Quicken cr ashes; i.e., you don't lose data entered in the current session.
As I see it, Dropbox monitors the directory, looking for files that are mod ified. I believe that each time Quickens QDF file is updated, dropbox goes to work, if you know what I mean.
I believe in its current form, Office invokes the Dropbox APIs which synchr onize file activity between each program and dropbox. Quicken doesn't do th at. After all, they have their own cloud sy$tem! Why kill and income stream ?!
I use Dropbox as a repository for my QDF file. I have a command file that I invoke when I begin a Quicken session. It copies the QDF file in dropbox t o my desktop. Then it invokes Quicken and points it to the QDF file on the desktop. When I finish my session (and I am satisfied with the session) I d rag and drop the QDF file on my desktop to dropbox. (Along the way I do inv oke the backup command from the FILE menu.)
In this manner I can access my QDF file from any of my platforms. The comma nd file is also stored in dropbox and I have a shortcut on my desktop. I ha ve one command file for each Quicken file I use.
Here it is:
----------------- echo on echo %COMPUTERNAME% rem pause if "%COMPUTERNAME%" == "VAIOFRED" copy /-Y /V %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\Dro pbox\Private\Q\Home.qdf "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\Desktop"
if "%COMPUTERNAME%" == "SUPERCOMPUTER" copy /-Y /V "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPAT H%\Documents\Dropbox\Private\Q\Home.qdf" "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\Desktop"
rem pause cmd /C "%HomeDrive%%homepath%\Desktop\Home.Qdf"
------------------ As for the QDF files created via the FILE menu; I keep the latest three on a different cloud drive!
Fred J.