Proper File Management

[Citereh 0]

I have been an amateur TMG user for years, but never get to spend enough time with it. Every time I upgrade, I feel like a new user. I now am using TMGv7 and my poor file management practices have caught up with me. I contacted on-line support and got WONDERFUL help via email and phone. However, I would like to improve my file management going into the future. My files are so messed up that I hardly know where to begin.

 

I hate to admit it, but I have multiple copies of TMG folders. I would like to delete the unnecessary folders, but I don't want to make things worse. 1. What is the BEST path to update Projects and Backups to?

 

I am running Windows 7.

 

My Backups are here: C:usersmy namedocumentsthemastergenealogistv7backups

My Projects are here: Librariesdocumentsmy folderthemastergenealogistv7projects

 

I think I have a problem with exhibits because they are in several different folders. 2. I believe exhibits should all be in one external folder outside of TMG?

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I want to upgrade to TMG8 after I have my files in order. 3. Before the upgrade I only need to backup the .sqz file from the backups file to an external drive?

 

Thank you,

 

Jan

[Helmut Leininger 0]

Jan,

 

my expereince on one of the points.

2. I believe exhibits should all be in one external folder outside of TMG?

What are your problems?

 

All my exhibits are stored externally. I have separated them into several folders, depending on their origin, meaning etc. For me, this makes it more transparent than having thousands of exhibits in one folder only.

 

The only drawback is that in this case you should not include the exhibits in the TMG backup because the TMG backup does not replicate the folder structure of the exhibits. You should use another backup method for your exhibits such as copy them to another location or use any other backup tool. On the other hand, this keeps your TMG backups small and fast.

[Jim Byram 0]

TMG8 uses different folders that TMG7.

 

Exhibits can be located in any valid user folder. They can be stored in a tree or in multiple trees. However, doing so makes maintenance more difficult.

 

TMG backup will back up all exhibits used by a project. However, restore will restore those exhibits to a single folder. If you have exhibits in a tree, you should not restore them from TMG since this will 'flatten' the tree to a single folder.

 

You just need to backup your TMG7 projects and restore them to TMG8.

 

There is no problem with using the TMG7 default backups folder; however, you should always have copies of your backup files stored on 'permanent' media in case of failure of your hard disk.