As full separation of program and data as possible

[barryl]

Since George has declared the initial topic closed I am entering a couple of new topics.

As a new customer coming into this several months later let me first add my support to the original poster who wanted to keep programs and data separate.

While I know that that is not how Micr*s*ft encourage people to design systems, or design their own (all that "my documents" stuff), as an old school systems designer I know that it is the only way to go. Otherwise should you need to backup the program partition, which may well be the only one (this is how M***t sets it up by default), for example by system restore, or even a complete reinstall of the operating system, THEN  **ALL** your data has been lost (or at least backed up).

Consequently I think there should be the minimum of pointers in the data space generated by the program (IE just one item!) and everything else should be held where that points to (which could start in the same folder but needs to be configurable).

I dont know if Georges new design achieves that.

[Bill]

 

Barry

What is the point you are trying to make. If you want comment from other users you need to talk in laymans terms, we are not all conversant in programing skills.

I thought that now data can be stored away from the main program files a problem with the program would not constitute a loss of data as Bank Genie could be reinstalled and current data restored from the separate source.

Bill.

[ideasguy]

The Bank Genie 3 design
I took the advice of a highly respected Visual Foxpro expert who works closely with Microsoft contacts.
The advice was to go WITH Vista, not try and work around it.
I put a lot of research into how to make all my software products conform.
Bank Genie 3 was re-designed accordingly, and conforms.

The big problem was how to make my products work on all Windows platforms, without having to maintain multiple versions.
I managed that. The same Bank Genie 3 download or CD will install and work on any platform.

Bank Genie 3 has separated Program files and Datafiles.
By default, program files are installed in:
c:\program files\Bank Genie 3
Data files are installed in one folder, under the user profile (per Vista UAC requirements).
The location of data files is dependent on the User ID, and the operating system.

Its easy to understand your individual installation.
The About Bank Genie -BS200 program has new functionality to clearly indicate the location of both Program Files and Data Diles.

There are NO data files in the Program Files folder, not even an INI file.
On start up, Ive programmed Bank Genie 3 to look for the core data files in the expected folder under your USER folder.

Ive explained all about Data file locations in:
a) the Bank Genie Help Topics - Start Bank Genie 3, run program BS002, read the topics:
Folders and data (Core and SWITCH data)
Folders and Backups
Backups
b) Start About Bank Genie -BS200
Click the Help buttons beside Items 6 and 7.