How to point FM to use different .dat files

[lucabol]

Hi Mark,
I want all of my .dat files to be in the same directory, so that I can share it through Live Mesh (it works). The problem is that when I installed FM 10, the default is to download all new investments under "c:\user\NAME\My Documents" instead of the directory I set up with FM9.

I didn't realize that at first, so I ended up downloading very many new investments in the wrong directory. I now need a way to move such files to the directory where I store all the other .dat files.

Simply copying them doesn't work because there are already .dat files with the same name in the target directory. So I came up with this algo:
1. Rename the .dat file in the source directory (i.e. adding a number at the end)
2. Copy it to the target directory
3. In FM, File/Open Investment of the investment from the target direcory
4. I now have two copies of the investment, one from the source directory, the other from the target directory
5. Right click/Close on the investment from the source directory

This all works fine, but when I open the portfolio again, it picks up the file from the source directory, instead of the ones from the target one.

What is the best way to achieve what I want?

Thanks,
.luca

[Mark]

Hi luca,

This should work. A couple possibilities:

1) Are you certain you closed the desired one in step #5?
2) Did you save your portfolio after making all these changes?

[lucabol]

I did it a third time, and it now seems to work. Sorry to have bothered you.

Cheers,
.luca

[lucabol]

Ok, yesterday night was working. This morning it doesn't work again.

I get: "The investment file: C:\users\Luca\Documents\Fund Manager\VXX1.dat specified in the portfolio could not be found".

Is it possible that the price update that I run nightly messes things up?

.luca

[Mark]

Hi luca,

If you go look using Windows Explorer, does that file exist? Is that your intended target destination, or was that where you were moving from?

I can't think of anyway the price update could change the location of your investments.

[lucabol]

The file doesn't exist. After I moved all my .dat files from 'source' directory to 'target' directory, I renamed 'source'. I then closed and opened FM a bunch of times yesterday night without problems. Today, if I try to open it, I get that the file wasn't found.

.luca

[Mark]

Is this folder:

C:\users\Luca\Documents\Fund Manager

your "source" or your "target" folder? Do you expect that file to exist, or is it still looking for a file in your old "source" folder?

[lucabol]

It is still looking for a file in my old folder (source), which I renamed.

That's what I don't understand. Why is it still looking for the old files in the old folder after I closed the investments in FM? And why is it not picking up the new ones from the new folder after I added them to FM?

Is there anything stronger then "Close" for an investment? Is there anything in the registry that points to the files?

Alternative, can you spell out what I should do to achieve what I'm trying to do, and when I get home, I'll try again.

.luca

[lucabol]

Could it be that the problem is that I use FM from multiple computers, by sharing the folder that contains the .mm4 and .dat files?

Maybe something gets stored in the registry of each computer that causes this to happen?

.luca

[Mark]

Hi luca,

The only reference to the investment files to load is in the portfolio file (*.mm4). The fact that you had it working correctly several times makes me suspect somehow you are getting an old .mm4 file. Maybe you're syncing from another computer, and your .mm4 file is getting replaced? Take a look at the modified date/time of your portfolio file, and see if it has been modified since you made those changes, or maybe it was modified earlier, indicating somehow you got a reverted copy of your .mm4 file.

The only relevant options here are closing/opening investments, which you are doing already. It really sounds like there is something else going on with your .mm4 file not being the same one you last saved.

[Mark]

Hi luca,

I had another thought... If you are accessing the same data files from multiple computers, you may accidentally be overwriting your changes from computer 1, with the data in memory of computer 2, etc... Make sure you do not have the same data files open from more than one computer at a time. Only the last computer to save will have their changes remembered. Fund Manager is not truly 'networkable'. You can only be modifying the data files from one computer at a time, and they should not be open on another computer at the same time.

[lucabol]

That might be it. Possibly Live Mesh is still pointing to the old .mm4 file and me accessing it, makes it become the newest one.

I'll investigate more.

.luca