Microsoft Money Sunset

[Grace Thomas]

I have been using Microsoft Money for 20 plus years and migrated to the Sunset version when it was necessary.  I really like having all of my investment history but the back up files are over 170 KG.   Beginning yesterday I am no longer able to open any .mbf files with the program.  It tries to restore the program then closes with an APP Crash description. 

I am able to open one .mny file with the program.    I read Cal's February post and performed the steps recommended in Tools. However when I try to back it up the file says it is only 35 KG and when I close it, the program crashes again...  I love my Money program and would so appreciate any help you can provide to get it back a running properly.  Thanks

[Cal Learner]

Keep an extra copy of your *.mny and *.mbf files on other media, such as a USB flash drive.

How many *.mbf files do you have, and how many of those are from 2020?

Money Sunset can make up to 99 upon-exit backup files that incorporate the date in the filename. The default is 4.

Money Sunset can also have scheduled backup files. Those could be going to a different place. You can search your C: drive for *.mbf and *.mny files with this command in a command window:

dir  \*.mbf \*.mny /s

Watch the results. The search can take a while. Any discovered files? You will get a count of files and the total number bytes.  Sample.mny is from the Money install

[JoAnn White]

What is the difference between the mbf and mny files?  I can find the mbf files, but only one mny file from 4 years ago.

[First Last]

mbf: is Money backup file which get created

* when you exit (unless you disable backup on exit)

* or when you manually perform a backup command (within Money)

You can use Money to open an mbf file to "restore" it to an mny file.

 

It makes sense that you will have multiple mbf files and (likely) one mny file.

>  I can find the mbf files, but only one mny file from 4 years ago.

Does any of the mbf files have a more recent date then the mny file?

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[First Last]

Hi JoAnn,

Both mny and mbf are DATA files and can be opened by MsMoney program.

I think what you should do is to gather a list of all mny and mbf files. Among those found, find the one with the latest date/timestamp and try to open it.

On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 1:50 AM JoAnn White <joannw...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is the mny file  the program itself, that is set up when I first install the program?  I hate to be so dense!

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[Mark Fields]

Thanks for starting the group.

I had a bit of a scare this morning, when I walked into my home office and the screen on my PC said "Windows failed to start.  A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.  To fix the problem ..."

The a list of items including the precaution that it could be due to hard drive failure.

It turned out to be that somehow Windows had changed the boot drive to a external WD My Passport which I leave plugged in to do regular backups.  This occurred (near as I can tell) because a Windows Update was done while the the scheduled back was being done.

I used Money Sunset 17.0.120.3817 

My question is regarding the backup location for Automatic backups and and scheduled backups of the MS Money file.  I have them backing up to a second 1TB internal drive (Drive d:\) because I have a 500 Gb SSD for the OS and Programs (Drive c:\). 

Would using One Drive or a cloud based system be preferable?  Also would it be reasonably secure?  If so then if I did have a serious hardware issue, at least since I have a laptop with MS Money Sunset installed I could recover quickly.

I've attached a screen shot of the backup settings.  Would appreciate constructive  criticism of my settings.

I don't want to experience again the sinking feeling I got today.  I'm glad I was able to fixe the problem today.

Cheers and happy new year!

Mark

[Rich Tubbs]

I also had a similar situation once. I now use essentially two backup systems. My automatic backups are directed to a second 1 TB drive but I also use an external WD My Passport which I plug in and manually make a backup copy each time I close a session. I have Windows updates disabled (Windows Update Blocker  [WUB]) but I still don't trust that Microsoft won't find another way to destroy my Money..LOL.. so at least I'll have at least one backup file.

Regards and Happy New Year!

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[William Becker]

Mark,

Backup strategy is very dependent on your tolerance for risk. IMHO, the bare minimum is to have copies of your most recent Money file (or a current backup of that file) on two different physical media. Since you have two internal hard drives and you are also backing up all your files to the external WD My Passport drive on a regular basis, you actually have copies on three different physical media.

I have a similar setup but am a bit more paranoid. I set my “Money Automatic Backup” to go to my second internal hard drive and my “Money Scheduled Backups” to go to an external flash drive. That way I also have reasonably recent copies of current Money files on three different physical media, - my working Money file on the main SSD system drive, multiple backup files on the second internal hard drive, and multiple backup files on a flash drive. Actually, I have 4 flash drives that I use for Money backups and I rotate them every week or so. It’s a lot of copies, but flash drives are cheap. The advantage of flash drives is that you can look at the contents each time you plug one in and verify that the backups are there just as you expect.  Windows Update or some misbehavior in your system backup process can’t mess up the files on those flash drives when they are in your desk drawer.

For disaster recovery I also have two big flash drives that I use to store all my data files (encrypted) for off-site storage. My backup program runs once a day and saves any changed data files to one of those drives. I keep the other in a safe deposit box and swap them once a month, just before Windows “Patch Tuesday”.   Worst case, - my house burns down, - I would only loose a month of changes to my data files.  Cloud storage instead of flash drives would be a much more convenient option, but I like idea of fully local control.

I also do full system images, but that’s a different discussion.

[SAP]

I backup these files to a different drive AND in the cloud using Google Drive. 

[Christer Hartman]

Microsoft Money Plus Sunset Home and Business 17.0.150.3817 is hosted at :

https://archive.org/details/MoneyBizSunset

I had lost my installation file for Home & Business.

I got problems opening a backup file to a specific location. Money creates a .tmp file : mbfF7F5.tmp in the AppData/Local/Temp folder instead. Running Windows 10. Security problem writing files?

What is the reason for this?

/Christer Hartman