Quicken for Windows Backend Database Technology / Validate and Super Validate Working

eqpu

I came to know from another discussion in this community that

Quicken Mac using SQLite (which is also used throughout the Mac operating system) gives it a robust, industrial-strength database core which is inherently superior to the older database in Quicken Windows. It's why there are no database maintenance tools (Validate & Repair and similar) at all in Quicken Mac.

I am using Quicken from 1998 and have currently paused at Quicken 2012 Premier. I have always been intrigued by the Validate, Super Validate etc although I am not too sure how they work, what they actually do and would be afraid to use the same due to risk of losing my data from so many years now.

For a brief background, I am (was) a software person having worked with databases all my life and so have a fairly good knowledge about how relational databases and other databases work right from the dBase III days. I am also aware that an entire suite of applications and utilities these days are based upon SQLite due to its robustness. It was a surprise to me when I came to know that both Mac (never used one) and Quicken for the OS use SQLite heavily.

That brings me back to my original question. If anyone knows more technical details about the underlying database technology used to store Quicken for Windows files (QDF data files for both old Quicken data files all the way to the current ones on Windows OS), it will be highly appreciated if they can share the link or offer the explanation for that here.

Connected to above is exactly what does the Validate and Super Validate do as they are available to check the database consistency and integrity? Having knowledge about same would be very helpful. This will also give me the confidence to use these utilities properly if and when required. As mentioned above, it is decades of data and I do NOT want to take any risk with the same. So, I continue to use Quicken as usual.

Chris_QPW

Quicken Inc and Intuit before them has never released that kind of information, which means everything we "know" about it is speculation.

One speculation was that it is some long forgotten Oracle database format. Which isn't a bad guess in my opinion given that the database would go back to probably the first Windows version.

As validate and super validate goes if you've been a database guy you're speculation is probably as good as anyone's at what it's doing exactly. The concept of making things consistent and sort of noticing what it does suggest some me that in the database is organized where you have records like account names and things like that then pointing to other records and for whatever reason bugs or whatever those links become invalid you know the date isn't there it's not where they expect that kind of stuff and so they checked that can to see if those links are valid and if they're not you know they get rid of the link. An absolutely people should understand that validate isn't magic and data loss is a very real possibility. Then again leaving the corruption in who knows what would happen after that if it hits it you know when the program. If one can catch the problems soon enough my take on it is you should always go to a backup instead of validate validate his last resort in my opinion. Super validate over validate I don't know they're more aggressive one and removing out things that they think are bad. There is something else to understand The QDF file currently use since Quicken 2010 is actually a compressed folder similar to zip. The individual files that used to be there about five of them are now all in one compressed file. The actual database which internally is still called a QDF is the database that we're sort of always referring to but there is data like the attachments that are completely separated in these other files. So you could also be talking about consistencies and fixing up of those files at certain times. For instance there's unique IDs for the transactions we know that those unique IDs are not stored in the database they're stored in a separate file. We also know that the prices are stored in a separate file. And if you were running the Canadian version which stores daily currency prices those would go in another file.

eqpu

there is data like the attachments that are completely separated in these other files

I do not like to put attachments or receipts inside the Quicken file. I do NOT have any external files inside of Quicken file.

I also seldom use split transactions to make my life easier and the file more simpler, if at all (who knows how split transactions are stored).

Mostly it will be multiple transactions instead of one split transaction. The exception was when I used to enter payslips, it was a split transaction as it used to make things simpler during subsequent payslip entries.

Hope the above practices has made the file more sturdy.

NotACPA

"I do not like to put attachments or receipts inside the Quicken file. "

Your QDF is, actually, a zipped file containing multiple files within it, which is what QPW was referencing.