Will Quickens cloud backup prevent corrupt files?

mikewp

I have been a Quicken user for approx 25 years using Windows and I use the current version R60.15. About 5 years ago I began experiencing problems with Quicken, i.e., inaccurate reports, a slowing processing, etc. The Quicken rep was very surprised when I told him my data was nearly 20 years old. After some work on his part he determined I had a few corrupted files. We never could figure out exactly what files were corrupted but some were and we suspect strongly it occurred when downloading updated files from Vanguard. He convinced me to use the year end archiving feature which we did. We called the original version V.1 and the newest version V.2. Since V.2 is now five years old I thought it prudent to perform another year end archiving. However, it didn't work, so I called Quicken and eventually the rep was able to figure out that the date feature does not work and possibly will not ever work. I was quite surprised to hear that and told him my concern was that if I kept my files too long without archiving I run the risk of experiencing corrupt files, as I did 5 years ago. He told me not to worry because I was using Quickens new online backup service and that service will not allow corrupted files to be backed up. I am not a techy guy but I'm not sure that his answer gives me a lot of confidence that I couldn't somehow get another corrupted file. I'm guessing I could still get corrupted files but simply won't be allowed to upload it to the cloud.

Anyway, two questions please.

1. I read a few posts that suggests there is no need to archive. Perhaps, but what do you do then if you have a corrupt file?
2. Does it make sense that I can avoid corrupted files simply by backing up to the Quicken cloud?

Thanks for any help.

splasher

Backing up to the Quicken Cloud has no more benefits than making backups to removable media or using any other cloud backup service, except it happens automatically from within the Quicken desktop program.

The reason to have backups and keeping more than the last one is that is something does corrupt your data file, you may have a backup that pre-dates the corruption and you can restore to it and then update your data file to being current.

Answers to questions:

#1 Some users like to do a Year-End-Copy every year and purge their data file of history. Personally, I think that is a huge mistake. My current data file goes all the way back to 1996 and it is 113MB, but it has NO attachments in it, so it is all data. I only have a single file to search in if I am trying to find so old information versus the user that archives via YEC would need to search thru a bunch of files if they can even still open them (just try to open a 1997 data file using current Quicken, it isn't going to happen).

#2 I think I covered that in my comments at the start of this post.