Family Historian User Group

Hello,

Just a quick question, I have a quite a few backups from my V6 FH. When I move to V7 will these backups be valid any longer or should I immediately start to create new V7 backups? I only use the inbuilt FH "Full" backup command & Mike Tates "Backup & Restore FH settings" plugin (v2.9).

Thanks in advance for any advice.

David
(Always nervous about losing 15+ years work!)

The old FH V6 Full Project backups will be fine with FH V7.
After they have been restored via File > Backup/Restore, when they are opened, FH V7 will convert them in the same way it will convert your active Projects the first time they are opened. To avoid the time that may take then new FH V7 Project backups would be better and will include new settings now held within Projects.

You will have to update my 'Backup and Restore FH Settings' plugin to V3.0 to allow it to run in FH V7.
The same goes for all other Plugins because there are major changes that affect all Plugins.

You will need new backups for you customisations as FH V7 has many extra custom features.

Some of your customisations and settings may need 'correcting' for FH V7 due to the changes.

Mike,
Are you sure about that. I used your plugin to create a backup of PC running V6, When I tried to use your plugin to restore the backup to a laptop using V7, it complained it was expecting a V7 header or something like that, and wouldn’t proceed!
Did I get process wrong? Where does file/restore come into it, I thought that was what your plugin was for?

If anybody is exploring the automatic backup of FH settings described here, the backup process works in FH7 exactly as in FH6. The only difference is that in FH6, restore can be either to the original PC or an identically configured second PC, while in FH7 it can only be to the same PC, as the backup includes activation details that are not valid on another machine. Neither should you try to restore a FH6 backup into FH7, as that is likely to fail.

It's an option for easy reinstallation or disaster recovery on the same PC, but for anything else you would use the more selective Backup and Restore Settings plugin.

Mark,

Thanks for that advice. Very timely, as I'm just about update my main installation and will be running a combination of Version 6 and 7 for some time (on different and unconnected projects of course).

For me, the negative impact of losing a method for 'transferring' the majority of settings just because of the inclusion of targeted registration data works against the value of the plugin as it stands, but I'm sure Mike Tate has it on his 'ToDo/Think About List', which must have been, and probably still is, very long. Perhaps an exclusion option (or straight exclusion) for the system specific Windows Registry entries as, in the event of a 'catastrophic failure' the user may well have to 're-register' the FH7 installation before being able to open the software to then be able manually reinstall the Backup & Restore Plugin in order to restore the other settings?

Fortunately, my systems (including all program settings) are continuously backed up, so my main use of the plugin has for transfer/updating across systems rather than re-install.

Mervyn

Be assured that the Backup and Restore FH Settings plugin does not include any licence, activation, or other platform sensitive codes. That part of the Windows Registry keys has always been excluded. That is why the instructions say you must enter platform-dependent paths such as the default Project and the default Backup folder that are NOT included in the backups.

Backups from one version of FH are not necessarily compatible with a later version of FH and never compatible with an earlier version. If the later version is a minor update such as 6.1 to 6.2 then the backups should migrate with minimal risk. Major upgrades such as 6.2 to 7.0 carry a much greater risk. However, FH V7 should accept and convert FH V6 customisation settings (more or less). The plugin deliberately requires the backup and restore FH versions to be identical under normal circumstances, and will report an error if they differ, but there is an Option to relax that rule when moving to a later version, however you use that Option at your own risk.

Mike,

Thank you for the reassurance. So the only potential problem lies on having two (or more) licenced installations running on different Family Historian versions, which is no different past behaviour.

That's fine as I am currently operating with 2 Settings Backups, Version 6 for unconverted projects & Version 7 for my 'main' project in separate folder structures until I make the complete transition. Using Virtual Machines and/or Crossover, of course allows me the 'luxury' of running Versions 6 & 7 simultaneously on different projects for as long as necessary.

Mervyn