update problem : urgent!

Hi all,

I recently had a problem on my PC and had to format my HD and reinstall evrything (WinXP OS). I have reinstalled Quicken home and business 2008 but cannot open my backup files with the message that this backup is with an error message that "This QDF file is from a later version of quicken". I assume that this is because I have not installed the updates to Quicken

Thanks

Ed

Hi, Ed.

Step 1: DON'T PANIC!

OK, now we can get to Step 2, etc.... ;^}

ALL those Quicken application files are replaceable at minimal cost. The only ones that are truly important to YOU are your data fileset. That is, the QDF and related files, probably no more than a half-dozen in all. If you did not assign a different name, then they will be the default QDATA.QDF, QDATA.QEL, etc., known collectively as QDATA.*. There should also be 5 (by default) complete sets of backups in a subfolder named \BACKUP under the Quicken application folder (probably C:\Program Files\Quicken\BACKUP). In addition, there may be any number of backups that you may have created and put in other places on your hard drive, or on CDs or USB flash drives or other storage locations. You don't need to find ALL these filesets. Just one set will do - hopefully the latest set with all the transactions you've entered to date.

PROTECT that latest fileset at all costs! Everything else can be replaced.

Now, forget that you ever had Quicken installed before. Delete every trace of the program that you can find. Then insert the Quicken 2008 H&B CD and start from scratch to install it again. After it is installed - and updated (my Quicken 2008 Deluxe is up to Release R7) -click File | Open and Browse to your carefully preserved .qdf file and load it. When you are sure that it is the correct data, press Ctrl+B to make a backup to removable media of your choice (CD, USB, etc.) that you can remove from the computer and store safely and separately. Then just Exit Quicken as usual. Next time you click the icon on your desktop, it should start with your preserved-and-updated fileset loaded.

If any of that is unclear - or doesn't work - please post back with details of what you did and what results you saw.

It SHOULD work without any problems.

RC

"R. C. White" wrote in news:d_KdnQnufp2eyt7VnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@posted.grandecom:

Thanks RC, it worked fine for me. The key was deleting all Quicen tree and reinstalling. I previously did it with add/remove programs that appraently did not remove the entire tree.

Ed

Keep on mind that if the update process still doesn't work, you can download the updates directly from Quicken.

I tend to agree with R.C., though that t was an incomplete install that is the most likely problem...

Glad to hear it worked out.

Hi, Ed.

Great! I'm glad it worked for you.

Yes, Quicken is one of those programs that scatters little tidbits of itself all around and can be hard to cleanly uninstall completely.

RC