Some of my reports have disappeared!

[DavidJ]

Hi!

Some (but not all) of my memorized reports have disappeared. I don't know how it happened. I have a large set of FM's automatic backups.

How do I restore the saved reports?

I'm running FM 9.3.

Thanks.
David.

[Mark]

Hi David,

Memorized report settings are stored in the registry. If you do a "File / Restore..." you can select to only restore the registry settings. It may be possible you don't have registry settings in your backup if you are either running an old version of Windows, or if you are under Vista and have UAC turned on.

[DavidJ]

I just tried that, and it refuses to restore the registry settings. It tells me that the "the media is write-protected". What do I do next?

I'm running WinXP SP2.

Thanks.
David.

****

Well, it turns out that things are a little worse than when I wrote that about an hour ago, and a lot stranger. I should have said, in any case, that I also got an error message which I didn't understand about some registry key, and a final error message that the restore had failed.

Well, I rebooted for an unrelated reason, went into FM, and lo and behold, my missing reports were back. But when I went into some other applications, I discovered that there was damage to unrelated parts of the registry. For example, MSN Money Toolbox no longer recognized me as a user, so I had to log ina again and restore some things, and Roboform could no longer find its data, so I had to attach them again.

So what do I want from Mark at this point?

I'd appreciate it if you can figure out what went wrong, so that I can use the registry restore gadget safely in the future, if necessary.

I also have a suggestion for some future version: I think that it might be a good idea if FM set a System Restore point (or some registry backup of your own) before any restore which includes the registry.

It doesn't have anything to do with what happened to me, but you might also want to consider having the restore default to 'selected only' and not 'all'. Accidentally erasing one's entries for the last 3 days could be a a pain, but if one doesn't restore enough, one could always do it again.

Thanks.
David.

[Mark]

Hi David,

Sorry to hear about the troubles. What settings did you select when you did the restore? If you just want to restore the registry settings you should select only that line in the list on the left, and choose to restore only selected items.

Also, I would suggest updating FM to the latest release (9.5). We did make an improvement as of 9.4 in the File / Restore... command relating to restoring registry settings. Previously, FM would attempt a restore if you didn't have sufficient permissions, but as of 9.4 this is prevented.

The fact that your memorized reports just disappeared in the first place is a little suspicious that something else is wrong. Have you tried scanning your whole computer for viruses?

[DavidJ]

What settings did you select when you did the restore? If you just want to restore the registry settings you should select only that line in the list on the left, and choose to restore only selected items.

That's what I did.

Also, I would suggest updating FM to the latest release (9.5). We did make an improvement as of 9.4 in the File / Restore... command relating to restoring registry settings. Previously, FM would attempt a restore if you didn't have sufficient permissions, but as of 9.4 this is prevented.

OK, I'll update before I next try a restore. I should have said that I always run FM logged in to Windows as a User, but using runas to run it from an Administrator account. (This method is left over from some ancient version of FM which made problems when run from different accounts, and especially from a User account.) I've been doing this for years, though, and never had problems.

The fact that your memorized reports just disappeared in the first place is a little suspicious that something else is wrong. Have you tried scanning your whole computer for viruses?

I have a good antivirus running constantly in the background, but I'll do a full system scan this weekend.

Thanks.
David.

[Mark]

Hi DavidJ,

The running of FM under one account as a different user may have something to do with why the restore gave the error message. We have re-worked this registry backup/restore for the next major update, so that it doesn't matter what user you backup or restore under.

[DavidJ]

As long as we're talking about this matter and the next major update, I'd like to put in two requests, if they're not too difficult to implement:

1. An "install for all users" option, in addition to the implied "install for this user". A lot of programs seem to have this new "all users" option now.

2. If it's possible, I'd like the upgrade installation to be able to convert my current 'this user' to an 'all user' installation, without my having to uninstall and reinstall, which I guess would require me to reset all of my registry settings by hand.

Thanks.
David.

[Mark]

Hi David,

Thanks for the feedback. As you've seen, FM doesn't use the "All User" account at all. It installs/uninstalls under the currently running user's account. If multiple users want to run FM on the same machine, each user would want to install FM. I have seen the "All User" installation option in other programs you're talking about. Would installing multiple times under each user's account work for your needs, or is there some other reason you'd like to install as the "All User"?

[DavidJ]

There were reasons in old versions of FM (I've been using it since 5.x, I think, but maybe earlier). I usually use a (Restricted) User account, but sometimes want to use FM while in an Administrator account for other reasons, so I installed it in both. I also use Windows Scheduler to update prices once a day, and it's convenient for me to have the Scheduled Tasks run as an Administrator. Under those circumstances, FM would sometimes used to give annoying error messages if I was logged in as a User and it wanted to update its .dll, do automatic backups, etc.

It could be that these problems have long since been fixed; I just got used to running FM that way.

I would see it as a very minor nuisance to have to install FM twice, but as long as it worked OK after that, it would be fine.

I also have another question which might turn out to be a suggestion for v. 10, but I guess I should put it in a new thread.

Thanks again.
David.

[Mark]

Hi David,

Installing twice should work fine here. Do keep in mind that each user has their own preferences, separate from other users on the machine.

[IanC]

I would find it way more useful to have application related data definitions stored in a data file in the Fund Manager folder rather than the windows registry. The Windows registry should be limited to system configuration details that are not shareable between users.

The report definitions are definitely of interest to share and move about. It would even be nice to email them.

I use synchronization software to maintain the same data sets on my desktop and laptop and would like the custom reports to also be synchronized. This will save me from creating them twice.

Can you do it?

[Mark]

Hi IanC,

Thanks for the feedback. Fund Manager uses the "Current User" branch of the registry to store application global preferences. This allows each user to have separate global preferences. I can see that it may be more convenient for transferring these global preferences if they were stored in a file in the user's application data area for Fund Manager. You can still transfer these preferences, but you must either use 'regedit' to export this branch:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Beiley Software\Fund Manager

or restore a backup from Fund Manager that includes the registry settings.

I think you are asking about "memorized" reports? These are stored in the registry.

Portfolio files (*.mm4) can also remember report settings for currently opened reports, but these are separate from "memorized" reports, which show up at the bottom of the "Reports" menu.