I have never performed Year-end archiving of my Quicken data. I am unclear as which data will carry forward and which will not. That's followed by how do I access data that is not carried forward. From the help topic: "Archive your data file if you want to continue using an unchanged version of your current data file, and also create and store a separate file with just last year's transactions." Since I have never archived, will Quicken now create separate archive files of each year's data, or will it create one file of all data excepting the rule in the quote? I am raising this question because I have been told that files will corrupt after several years of use. My file goes way back, perhaps 10 or more years. So, I am concerned that something drastic is just around the corner. I backup my file habitually. Are the backed up files subject to corruption, too? What can be done if a file corrupts? My file has been validated and super validated recently. Scratching my head and sitting on pins and needles, Pat
This is one of the most-often-discussed issues in this newsgroup, especially around the end of each year.
The short answer is that most of us agree that backups are great, but archiving is not needed and will reduce the usefulness of Quicken.
Backups, especially at "milestone" points, such as the end of each year, are excellent ideas. In addition to the regular weekly backups which Quicken makes automatically, plus the "manual" backups that Q reminds us to do frequently, it is a great idea to have a backup of your data as of last year-end, and that it is on removable media of some kind that can be stored separately from your computer in case of fire, theft or other disaster.
But most of us see little good in removing historic data from our Quicken data fileset. Yes, it makes the file smaller so that it takes up less disk space. Many feel that it makes Q load faster, but nobody has ever proven that, so far as I know, or even quantified it here. We often discuss the size of our various Q data filesets, and many are larger and go back further than yours. I've been using Quicken since 1990 and my fileset (the .qdf plus .idx, .qph and 4 others) totals just over 30 MB. On a 120 GB hard drive, even multiple backups of that size are not a great burden. Others have reported larger files than that without any problems in loading or using Quicken.
The beauty of this is that I can load Q2007 Basic and get a report of my income and/or expenses for 1992 or 2002 as easily and quickly as for 2006. If I need to recall when I bought that computer printer that went bad, to see if it is out of warranty, it takes me only seconds. I don't have to recall which year it might have happened, then find that year's archive, load it, read it -- and then go look for the years before and after until I find the right one. (And trying to find a 5.25" floppy disk drive to read my old 1990 archive?)
Yes, we often hear that users "have been told" this, anonymously, of course, but our own experience tells us otherwise. Yes, corruption was certainly a problem a dozen years ago. Floppy diskettes were notorious and early 20 MB hard drives were not much better. I still click Backup several times in each Quicken session, a habit that goes back to the time when spontaneous resets and other computer glitches left me looking at a rebooting computer and having to re-enter an hour's work, not just in Q but in Word and any other application I might have been using. Today's computers, though, including the hard drives (and the NTFS file system) are so reliable that such a situation rarely occurs. File corruption is not inevitable, though, and like anything else, the likelihood increases with time and use. That's why we keep the several levels of backup mentioned above. But I doubt that archiving would provide any additional security against corruption.
When you have time, Pat, review the archives of this newsgroup and you will see this question raised and answered many times.
Well, I don't know any single answer to that question. If the file won't load, or if I suddenly am worth a billion dollars, then something is wrong, obviously! But if the corruption is more subtle, I might not realize it for a long time - years, even. And I may have dozens of backups, all created since the corruption happened and all similarly corrupted.
Fortunately, I haven't had any Quicken file corruption in several years (so far as I know!). In the earlier years, using MS-DOS and DOS-based Windows (Win3.x, Win9x) and FATx file systems, corruption was not unusual. I haven't Validated my Quicken file since about January 2004, so far as I can tell. That doesn't mean that I haven't made mistakes, of course. Just none that made me worry that my fileset was corrupted.
Perhaps John Pollard has a more definitive answer for both of us.
I do know that there are some problems/errors that occur in Quicken which Intuit believes are nearly always (very frequently?) caused by file corruption ... but the only way I know that is when I lookup a problem at the Intuit Support site (or possibly when an Intuit employee posts such info in the Quicken forums). My fading memory tells me there are quite a few Quicken problems that are considered likely to be caused by corruption ... but that memory isn't good enough to remember what specific problems they are.
222 14113 body R. C. White wrote:
I can't really improve on your answer, RC.
I do know that there are some problems/errors that occur in Quicken which Intuit believes are nearly always (very frequently?) caused by file corruption ... but the only way I know that is when I lookup a problem at the Intuit Support site (or possibly when an Intuit employee posts such info in the Quicken forums). My fading memory tells me there are quite a few Quicken problems that are considered likely to be caused by corruption ... but that memory isn't good enough to remember what specific problems they are.
On a personal level, I get some sort of educated-gut-feeling that sometimes I am seeing - or hearing about - something that may likely be the result of corruption. But the last time I thought my data was corrupt neither Validate nor Intuit's data analysis/repair team could find any corruption. I reinstalled Quicken and most of my problem went away. So much for "educated-gut-feelings".
There are two basic ways to catch much of any corruption that might be present: both of which are fairly easy to do and which pose little or no risk. Validating a Quicken copy of the data will catch corruption much of the time, especially non-investment account corruption. And a rename of the price history file should catch all price history corruption.
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