Can't rename company data directories anymore in Version 9.0.02

[drmackenzie]

My method of keeping past years data has been to copy the company data directory "company" to "company_2001" before closing out the year. However, with peachtree version 9.0, if you rename the directory to anything different it won't open it. If I do "move c:\peachw\company c:\peachw\company_test" it won't open the company any more. I get the error "That is not a valid PeachTree company. Please try again". Renaming it back to the original name solves the problem.

This worked fine through Version 8.0.2

That sucks.

Any ideas?

[JimR]

I do the same thing all the time (backup copies on HD).
Just now did it with different name and had no problem (v9).
The trick is to create the directory (any name) and copy all the files from the working directory to the new directory.
To be safe, I change the name of the company to
include a reference, like the year range '2000-2001' for historical data, so no mistake is made when opening the backup or historical directory.
Did this with v5, 6 and 9 no problems.

[Jacky Tse]

I shouldn't have any problems. We do the same fine with Peachtree 9. Try 2 things:

1) check if the files are set as "readonly"
2) avoid using long file name, rename to folder and try if it works

Hope this helps.

[drmackenzie]

I tried creating a new company using peachtree 9 and you are correct, I can rename the directory and it still works.

However, I am still unable to do that with my existing company data files that were created with past versions of peachtree and upgraded through version 9.

I have security enabled on the companies (I have users and passwords). However, it seemed to work ok to set a user on the new test company I just created and then rename the directory. We also have a multi-user license, but I can't see how that would matter. No one but me is even here today.

I am still stumped.

Doug

[drmackenzie]

I found the problem. The directory names I was "renaming" to were longer than 8 characters. Peachtree just gives you an "invalid data" message if the directory name is too long. Dumb.

[TheWolf]

Stay within 16-bit DOS naming guidelines and you will not have a problem. 8 characters or less and no spaces in the name.

[chuayp]

The best way is to backup the data and create a new company and restore back the database and renam it to say "ABC2001". It work fine for us since version 3.5 to Version 2003.