.dat Files

[klvassalotti]

I'm new to Fund Manager and in setting up my portfolios I did a lot of adjusting by copying sub portfolios then deleting the original vs. just moving them. Consequently, I believe I have many .dat files that are duplicates. Question is - how many .dat files should I have for each investment? If I hold the investment in one portfolio, should I have just one .dat file? If I hold it in two, should I have two?

Thanks,
Keith

[Mark]

Hi Keith,

Yes, what you said is correct. You should have 1 *.dat file for each account that holds that investment.

It does not really hurt to have extra/unused *.dat files stored, but here are a couple of techniques you can use to delete any unused investment files:

Before doing either of these, make a backup copy of your folder with all your investments, just in case...

1) Assuming you have your portfolio open with all your investments that you want, do a "File / Backup..." and save the *.fmb file somewhere safe. Do a "File / Close Portfolio" so that FM doesn't try to open your portfolio automatically the next time you start. Exit Fund Manager, and move all your *.dat files to a different, temporary folder. Re-start Fund Manager and do a "File / Restore..." and restore everything to the original location. Make sure everything looks good, and then you can delete that temporary folder where you moved all your investments.

2) Assuming you have your portfolio open with all your investments that you want, do an "Investment Properties... / Password" and enable the password on all of your investments. The idea here is to record a change in every open investment so that it will be written to disk when you save investments. Press "File / Save Investments". Now, you can delete all the *.dat files that were not just modified. Use Windows Explorer to sort your *.dat files by modified date/time, and delete ones that were not just saved, as they aren't open in Fund Manager.

[klvassalotti]

Thank you, Mark. I was thinking it would be much for difficult to clean up.

Keith