Family Historian User Group

I have a rooted objection to being told by Bill Gates that all my files must be under his Documents & Settings. However, I now see that my queries, reports, icons etc are split between Doc & Settings, and my Family Historian folder under Program Files, some being in both, and some being only in one. This means that when I have been backing up my FH folder, and all its sub folders, the items under Doc & Settings are not being backed up, so any recovery would not be complete. Can you suggest a way out of this?  Jeremy

ID:2157

I think it may be a little harsh to blame Bill Gates for this entirely. My understanding is that FH itself stores all current settings to the document and settings folder, so any query that you have active within the program will show up there.

I always back up the documents & settings folder as well. It's the only way of ensuring that you can restore everything as is if needs be.

As far as I am aware the ones in program files, should not be changed once the program installed. You should be able to tell by looking at the last modified dates.

The ones under Program Files can be changed but I suspect that there is no guarantee that they won't be changed by a program upgrade.

The ones in Document and SettingsAll Users are the custom ones.

The queries etc in in Document and Settings'myself'My Family Tree do not exist. [rolleyes]

The files in Document and Settings'myself'My Family Tree is where I keep my Gedcoms. Not in a hidden directory under 'All Users'. So when I backup I have to remember to back up two seperate directories.

I'm an expert PC user but I don't think all FH users are and to expect them to delve into hidden directories (the default setting for WinXP) to backup their settings is, I think, a bit hard.

Either they should be stored by user (with a option on installation indicating where they are stored if the program is to be used by all users on the PC) or the settings should be backup-able from within the program - see wishlist item 118.

Just to confirm for Version 2.3 and above.

The files in the program files directory are installed at installation time and are not changed in normal program usage. The files are used to replace those in application data when you use the installation settings button on a diagram / report or text scheme.

The files in Application Data are changed in normal use.

So to ensure you have copies of these it is not required to backup the program files directory.

I believe the reason for storing in the application data area is that it is shared between users of the computer and therefore does not change (as My Documents does) when a different user is active.

I think really these settings shouldn't be in the All UsersApplication Data. In a network environment you probably wouldn't want the custom diagrams, etc. of all the other users on your computer to appear in your instance of Family Historian.

There is an argument that they should be in the Application Data of the user in question. However, this folder tends to be used to hold files used by the program which aren't of any direct interest to the user, having a similar function to the registry. It doesn't seem sensible to expect a user to backup a hidden system folder. I notice that more and more Microsoft software (e.g. Visual Studio 2005, SQL 2005) are starting to save these kind of settings within a folder in My Documents which does seem far more sensible so that a user only has to remember to backup their 'my documents' folder.

An alternative would be for Family Historian to have a Backup facility which backed up all the current settings too (including registry settings) within a zip file in the same folder as the Family Historian Backups.

If the files are to be available to all users of a PC then the correct place to store them is in the 'All UsersShared Documents' folder, the equivalent to 'My Documents'. By default this could be a sub-directory called 'My Family', following the covention in WinXP to label everything 'My something'. Just a suggestion. [wink]

Yes agreed though my point was that I really don't see why the files should be available to others on the computer.

I agree that my newly created custom queries are in D&S/Appl Data/  etc, but this does not overcome my backup problem. I would fully support Nick in saying it would be great if the backup file created on leaving FH also backed up the custom queries, reports, text schemes, diagrams etc currently saved under D&S/Appl Data/Calico Pie/Family Historian/ etc. Then it would be a complete backup ready to restore ALL the previous files. What about a Wish List item?? Jeremy    
PS - I am going away for 3 weeks, so won't be able to respond to any more posts until I return.

There is already a wishlist item for this here