Thanks Geert, Just now getting around to this. I'm being treated for cancer so don't have the usual energy plus I am doing this at a distance with friends in Mexico via Zoom. Some answers to your questions and some questions of our own plus a problem showing the sub-accounts on the chart of accounts.
1. "Saved custom reports is slightly ambiguous..." To clear that up, we are talking existing report configurations that we have tweaked and saved to "saved report configurations." 2. You mentioned a migration tool. Is that a separate program or part of the installation program? 3. We chose the second approach, copying the data and metadata to the new PC and doing the updates there. Stuck on upgrading from 2.6.21 to 3.11 on the Windows 10 computer. Not sure we did the metadata part correctly. 4. Does metadata mean the entire .gnucash file found in USERS/username/.gnucash? We did copy that entire file from the Windows 7 computer to the Windows 10 computer in the same place. We created a GnuCash file in Documents on the new computer and copied over the data file there from the Windows 7 computer. Then we installed the program, clicked "finish" opened the program and opened the data file from the file in Documents/GnuCash. 5. All the customer accounts were there and the chart of accounts was complete. Didn't take much to remember how to add columns to the chart of accounts page and sort on the account code. On the chart of accounts page, all of the parent accounts were closed with the arrow to the left. Assets opened and showed all of the sub-accounts but none of the other parent accounts would open. We have a further division between cash and bank accounts and at least one of the sub-parent accounts would not open. There are 3 levels of sub-accounts: banks and cash. Under cash, there are several second level accounts plus about 4 cash reserve sub accounts. We ran Action>Check and repair>Check and repair all. That seemed to work at first as the rest of the asset sub-accounts and the liabilities sub-accounts opened. But before the process finished the program crashed. We opened it again and got the message that the program had closed abnormally. We opened it normally to see if it worked and it had, at least as far as the cash accounts were concerned. So we ran the Check and repair all option and the asset and liability sub-accounts opened and the sub-account journals showed transactions and had the correct balances. The rest of the parent accounts still did not open correctly to show sub-accounts so we ran Check and repair again. Got a little further this time but the program crashed again. We opened the program again with the same message that the program closed abnormally. Chose open normally. This time the liabilities sub-accounts were opened but none of the rest of the parent accounts opened. We tried another idea, selected assets and ran Check and repair sub-accounts. That brought back the asset sub-accounts to the second level. When we were running the Check and repair programs, we noticed that the icons and menus were grayed out and accessible but did not see any other indication that the program was running or when it would be finished. We may have jumped the gun and tried to open some of the other parent accounts to see the sub accounts before the process finished so we tried again and let it alone to see if the icons and menus would come back as an indicator that the process was complete. We ran out of time and energy and decided to try again another day. We had to go back to the Windows 7 computer to do a couple of accounting tasks that needed to be done so we will have to start over but from where? The tweaked and saved reports did not migrate. Thanks again, Roger -----Original Message----- From: gnucash-user <gnucash-ser-bounces+rmomxtx=gmail....@gnucash.org> On Behalf Of gnucash-user-requ...@gnucash.org Sent: Wednesday, April 7, 2021 11:00 AM To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org Subject: gnucash-user Digest, Vol 217, Issue 16 Send gnucash-user mailing list submissions to gnucash-user@gnucash.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to gnucash-user-requ...@gnucash.org You can reach the person managing the list at gnucash-user-ow...@gnucash.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of gnucash-user digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Migrating and updating version 2 to 4 (Geert Janssens) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2021 10:48:44 +0200 From: Geert Janssens <geert.gnuc...@kobaltwit.be> To: Gnucash <gnucash-user@gnucash.org> Cc: Roger Oliver <rmom...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [GNC] Migrating and updating version 2 to 4 Message-ID: <1711197.tlkxdtw...@legolas.kobaltwit.lan> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Op woensdag 7 april 2021 02:30:30 CEST schreef Roger Oliver: > I'm running GnuCash 2.6.21 on a Windows 7 computer. I need to migrate > the system to a Windows 10 computer. Just need to be sure I understand > any complications I may encounter. Some questions. > > 1. Will I have any problems updating to version 4? Depends on how you will go about the update. I would certainly suggest to make a test conversion using a copy of your datafile (or have a backup of that data file just in case). The general procedure is to migrate from one major version to the next and not skipping one. As you are coming from 2.6, you should first update to the last 3.x version (3.11), and only then update to 4.5. Your situation is slightly more complicated because you also switch computers at the same time. > 2. Reading about version 4 on the GnuCash website, I think the only > thing we won't be able to migrate will be the saved customized reports > and preferences. Is that correct? "Saved customized reports" is slightly ambiguous to me. It can refer to reports you have written yourself in the scheme language (perhaps starting from a pre-existing report), or it can refer to the report configurations you have tweaked while using the program and saved there via "Saved report configurations". For the former, you can just copy over the scheme files (*.scm). You may have to tweak them as our scheme interface has had a few changes from 2.6.x to 4.5. For the latter, the migration could take care of them. The tricky part is you are migrating from one computer to another so you have to make sure the migration runs in an environment that has the old data available. Our migration tool is also quite picky so the order in which you do things matters. Preferences can be copied over but it requires some advanced Windows registry manipulation (that is, you'll have to export part of a registry tree and import it in the registry on the new PC). Depending on your skills it may be easier to just reconfigure your preferences manually on the new PC. The preferences aside there are two possible ways forward to arrive with GnuCash 4 on your new PC: 1. You do the updates via 3 to 4 on your Windows 7 PC and once that's to your satisfaction you copy over all data and metadata. 2. You start by copying your data and metadata to the new PC and do the updates there. The latter has the advantage your original data and GnuCash program on the Windows 7 PC remain untouched. That way you are sure you have a working backup. I'll write steps for this second approach later. > 3. Am I reading the manual correctly that all we need to migrate our > data is to copy the current data file to the location where version 4 > keeps these files. Is that still Documents/GunCash? Yes and no. GnuCash doesn't "keep" data files anywhere in particular. You can store your data file anywhere you like and then use "File->Open..." within gnucash to use it. Just like you would in a word processor or a spreadsheet. There is a bit more to it though, so I'll summarize here, describing the steps for method 2: 0. Important! Under no circumstance open gnucash on the new PC before you have copied data and metadata from your Windows 7 PC to the appropriate locations on the Windows 10 PC. If you did, you'll have to manually remove the following directory from the Windows 10 PC for the migration to kick in: C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\GnuCash Replace <yourusername> with the appropriate name. Also note AppData may be a hidden directory on your system. Use whatever tricks available to make it visible. The easiest I have found so far for me is to enter "%APPDATA%" in the location bar. It may be useful to check beforehand anyway whether that directory already exists or not and remove it if so. Removing or renaming this directory is also the way to reset any previous metadata migration. If this directory doesn't exist, the migration tool will run the next time you start gnucash. 1. For your accounting data, you can copy the data file to somewhere you find convenient on your new PC. You will later be able to locate it using "File->Open" as written above. 2. For your metadata (as you're still on GnuCash 2.6.x) copy the directory C:\Users\<yourusername>\.gnucash from your Windows 7 PC to your Windows 10 PC. Note this directory starts with a '.'. That dot is important so be sure the directory name on the new PC has that as well (Windows may complain about extensions). 3. If you feel like it you can use the RegEdit tool to export the registry tree HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/GSettings from your old PC and import it in the new PC. That will take care of your preferences. 4. Optionally, if you're an Online banking user you can also copy your Online banking settings by copying the directory ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. 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