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How to remove Quicken from a computer

Leslie Lewis

I need to remove all Quicken files from my computer before I send it in for repair. I have backed-up the data files. Do I just delete the data files or are there other files that need to be removed. Shall I delete the program files also?

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Accepted answers

NotACPA

ALL of your data (including transactions, account info, passwords, etc) is contained in your Q data files.

SO, simply take a backup of your current file to a USB drive, or such, and then delete ALL QDF files from your computer.

There's no need to delete the program itself.

splasher

Are you planning on wiping the empty areas of the harddrive?

If you don't, deleting the files does not really remove them, it just makes the space available to be used and a dishonest tech can still find and read them.

Personally, I have always kept my Quicken data files in an encrypted data vault (several of the A/V programs have this feature) to make it much more difficult to get at my information.

If you are going to delete stuff, you need to remove the WHOLE folder where the Quicken data files are located since the automatic backups are stored there and of course any backups that you have stored on the local harddrive.

'There is no need to remove the program since it contains none of your financial information.

All comments

NotACPA

ALL of your data (including transactions, account info, passwords, etc) is contained in your Q data files.

SO, simply take a backup of your current file to a USB drive, or such, and then delete ALL QDF files from your computer.

There's no need to delete the program itself.

splasher

Are you planning on wiping the empty areas of the harddrive?

If you don't, deleting the files does not really remove them, it just makes the space available to be used and a dishonest tech can still find and read them.

Personally, I have always kept my Quicken data files in an encrypted data vault (several of the A/V programs have this feature) to make it much more difficult to get at my information.

'There is no need to remove the program since it contains none of your financial information.

Leslie Lewis

Thanks.

Leslie Lewis

Therer are several .dat files. Do I need to delete them as well.

splasher

Leslie Lewis said:

Therer are several .dat files. Do I need to delete them as well.

If they are in the folder where the Quicken data file was located, yes. The whole contents of that folder should be deleted.

Sherlock

I suggest using SDelete to securely delete files on Windows: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete

There are a variety of approaches you can use to make SDelete easier to use. On my systems, I've added a Shredder option to the SendTo menu and an AutoHotKey script that invoke SDelete.