Moving Quicken - COPY FILES or Restore from BACKUP - Windows

W5gn

My Quicken Directory has three files opened/updated each time I use Quicken, the large FIXED.QDF file, FIXEDOFXLOG.DAT and FIXEDSYNCLOG.DAT. Are All three needed to move to a new computer? What is the purpose of the last two files? Will all three be created if I instead Restore from Backup? Or is it safer to XCOPY the three files to the new machine?

Chris_QPW

FIXED.QDF is your data file, and what you need to move to the new machine.
The *.DAT files are log files in "scrambled" format since they have personal information in them.
They are opened and read using Help -> Log Files (OFX Log and Cloud Sync Log).  These are optional as for copying to the new machine.

The only difference between copying the *.QDF file and doing a backup and restore which creates *.QDF-backup files is how Quicken treats the two types. Internally the two types are identical.

When you open a *.QDF file Quicken reads and uses it directly.  When you open a *.QDF-backup file Quicken will ask you where to make a copy of the file (to a .QDF file) and then open that .QDF file.

thecreator

W5gn said:

My Quicken Directory has three files opened/updated each time I use Quicken, the large FIXED.QDF file, FIXEDOFXLOG.DAT and FIXEDSYNCLOG.DAT. Are All three needed to move to a new computer? What is the purpose of the last two files? Will all three be created if I instead Restore from Backup? Or is it safer to XCOPY the three files to the new machine?

Hi @W5gn ,

As @Chris_QPW posted the FIXED name is the name of your Quicken Data File. The other .DAT Log files are created to stop the need to have to sign in, each time.

I would not move the file to another computer.

I would create a \Quicken folder in your New Computer's Documents folder. then add a new folder within Quicken, simply called Backup. I would then Share the Folder, called Backup.

Then I would open Quicken on the old computer. Then, I would create a Manual Backup of your Data File to that Shared Backup Folder on the New Computer. Once Quicken is installed on the New Computer, I would then Restore the Manual Backup File to the New Computer. Once the Backup is restored, you will need to Sign in on the new computer to the new location on the New Computer. The Log Files will be created again.

W5gn

Thank to both of you for your explanations.