Validate

Jim:

Every day before I copy my main Quicken file to the appropriate Day of the Week folder.

I believe I got that folder procedure from John Pollard :-)

Bob

Just for curiosity sake from the menu: File-->File Operations--

How often do you execute Validate?

How often do you execute Supper Validate?

Thanks, Jim

Jim,

If you search the online help at

for "validate," you will get some useful information. One comment there of interest: "Important: We recommend that you validate your Quicken data file only if you're experiencing problems with your Quicken data and not as a regular practice. If Quicken finds problems with the file, it may rebuild it."

If you do validate your file, be careful to do so on a copy (or be sure you have a good backup of your data files before running validate).

I've been using Quicken for Windows since 1991 and would confirm that validate is only necessary if you are having specific problems. The safest way to protect yourself is with a good backup routine. I have nine folders -- bk1, bk2, etc. -- and I have Quicken set to remind me to backup after every three uses. I rotate the folders with each successive backup. In addition, Quicken makes its own backups (in another folder, not the ones I use), so I'm in pretty good shape in case of problems. All of my backups get copied to two hard drives, which adds to the sense of security. (Off-site would be even better.) Over the years, I've had to revert to backups once or twice, and I was sure glad I had them.

John

Since upgrading to Q2005, I've only Validated/SuperValidated four times. Never had any errors. Older versions I had a few corruptions.

Doesn't look like very many Quicken users execute Validate.

Thanks, Jim

Jim wrote in news:1192141771.967896.168440 @e34g2000pro.googlegroups.com:

I used to do it before a new version install, but forgot this time (2006 to

2008). Everything went fine. Perhaps they have programmed 2006 better than 1998?

I wouldn't interpret the results that way.

Validate is supposed to find and fix "corruption"; the source/cause of the corruption isn't material to the process of finding and fixing it.

One of the characteristics of data corruption on a pc is that it's cause can easily have nothing to do with the application that maintains the data; indeed, the user is sometimes the culprit.

It's a large task to analyze data from version-to-version and insure you can find *all* the corruption. I think it's one of those tasks that is subject to the law of diminishing retuns.

Can you elaborate?

Early stage disk drive problems - before the user is aware they are happening. In the case of Quicken, accessing the data over a network when the network is less than robust. Turning off the pc without doing a controlled shutdown.

There are probably more.