a way to combine archive files

[PattiWagen]

I have been archiving my money files every few years. I was trying to
locate a transaction and I had to open each archive file. Is there some way
of combining the archive files?

[Bob Peel, MVP]

You can't - see http://umpmfaq.info/faq.html#Q29. Many of us regard
archiving as one of the least helpful things that MS added to Money.

--
Regards
Bob Peel,
Microsoft MVP - Money

For UK tips & fixes see
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-GB;mny.

I do not respond to any emails that I have not specifically asked for.

"PattiWagen" <sand...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:elBIBYPn...@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

[Dick Watson]

Indeed, anti-helpful. It's almost like a data destruction function. And this
is one of the reasons.

"Bob Peel, MVP" <bob_...@kiandra.freeserve.co.uk.INVALID> wrote in message
news:uFlLWCQ...@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

[ed]

What's the intended purpose or archiving?

[Dick Watson]

My perhaps cynical opinion: matching Quicken which already had a similar
feature. As implemented, it's really not useful for much besides making your
file a little bit smaller and not doing so in a way that provides any way to
manage the data ever again as an integrated data set. If it a) exported ALL
of the pre-archive data in some relatively future-proofed format, b) removed
EVERYTHING prior to the archive end date--leaving only appropriate markers
of where the "seem" is from archive file to archive file and from archive
file to current file and what the relevant balances are at that seem, and c)
supported some method of spanning the old data files for things like queries
(if, say, archives x, y, and z were specified to be included) and lot sales,
then maybe it MIGHT have some use in my book. But not much.

In the early days of Money, its file storage was a lot more efficient so a
BIG M97 file was a) only four or five years old, and b) was, IIRC, still
only three or four megabytes or so. That fit on a 1.44MB floppy in a
compressed backup. Then people felt compelled to do it because that's how
they did their paper systems. ("New Years day? File last year's bills in a
shoebox.") Files got an order of magnitude or more larger with the change to
M98. In 1998 a 30MB file was kind of a pain--especially since the first
version of M98 didn't support file spanning of backups that suddenly were
much more likely to need to span multiple floppies. Here we are with M07 and
can buy 500GB hard disks at WalMart and can store 10GB on a $0.50 DVD-R DL
blank. So what if the file gets "large"? Still, a BIG M07 file is tipping
the scales at "only" around 100MB. (Based on reports here. Mine's at 58.7MB
and has all my transactions back to 1993.)

But let's ask Microsoft. From M07 Help:

===
Archiving your records reduces your current Money file to a more manageable
size. When you create an archive, you specify the date range and the
accounts that contain transactions you want to archive. Money then saves
these transactions to a separate file. For example, you can archive all
transactions that are more than a year old. Do not archive transactions that
you may need to edit or review.
===

I think the last word of the last sentence says it all. If you need to
review the data, ever, don't archive it. Note also that this does a poor job
of describing what it actually does--or did the last time I screwed with it
anyway. (Which was just now.) The Help doesn't even agree with Money's own
dialog box which says "During the archive process, Money makes a copy of
your current Money file. Then, from your current file, Money removes
transactions that you don't need to access regularly. To access the archived
transactions later, you can open the copy (the archived file)." As it says,
it saves ALL transactions to a separate file (the "archive" file) that is
for all purposes just a copy of the file as it existed prior to archiving.
It then deletes some subset of these transactions that are older than the
specified date from the current file, adjusting account beginning balances
accordingly. Many people have reported issues even with that one most
critical step. Note because the archive has all transactions in the file and
the resultant file has some subset of those transactions the combined set in
both files has duplicates. Yes, you can open the archived file. But only if
you have the exact same version of Money installed when you need to do so or
are willing to upgrade the "archive" file to the version you do have and
that version is still capable of the upgrade.

I could go on...

"ed" <mr.w...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Nu45i.14876$mD.9212@trndny02...

[Cal Learner-- MVP]

In microsoft.public.money, ed wrote:

It is to satisfy a sense of neatness that some people have. They
want to be rid of the older transactions.

Others have a different idea of neatness that allows the older
transactions to be readily accessible. Those people should not
archive.

In Money 2007 there is a side effect of archive. It actually removes
some old deleted info that has only been hidden. For those who want
to try that effect, I would advise they specify an archive date that
precedes all transactions in the file.

[ed]

> I could go on...

thanks for a phenomenal reply ;-)

[ed]

> In Money 2007 there is a side effect of archive. It actually removes
> some old deleted info that has only been hidden. For those who want
> to try that effect, I would advise they specify an archive date that
> precedes all transactions in the file.

That's interesting to know. What kind of info are you referring to?

[Cal Learner-- MVP]

In microsoft.public.money, ed wrote:

I am thinking deleted Payees, but it may be something else. I am
foggy on that point.

[Dick Watson]

FWIW, I let File | Archive do the Full Monty on a test copy of my regular
data file. Results:

1) The balances of all accounts in the resultant file--transactions from
March of 1993 through December of 2006 for ALL accounts it would allow were
removed--matched the untouched original file I started with. That's a good
thing.

2) The original file has 43,275 transaction elements as extracted by
MoneyLink Account Transactions for All Accounts All Dates and 6,186
investment transaction elements as extracted by MoneyLink Account
Transactions for All Investments All Dates. (Usual MoneyLink disclaimers,
e.g., the root elements are missing, apply.) By contrast, the post-archive
data file has 27,020 transaction elements and the same 6,186 investment
transaction elements. 25,503 of the remaining transaction elements pre-date
the archive date of 12/31/2006. It appears that most (all?) of these have
some relationship (typically it appears a Transfer to or From) to Investment
Cash Accounts. Since my Paychecks have lots of split info and a Transfer
:[401k cash account] element, they appear to be the predominant contributor
to the transactions left behind.

3) It took a LONG TIME to do this. When I last looked, the task had
accumulated 9+ hrs of CPU time.

4) The file size before archiving was 62,652,416 bytes. After, and after
several open/close cycles, the file size of the ongoing file was 48,238,592
bytes. That's a difference--a savings--of 14,413,824 bytes. As a comparative
data point, Israel Kamakawiwo`ole's "Facing Future" CD, ripped by iTunes to
AAC4 compressed format at 128 kbps, takes 54,832,300 bytes to store. It is
neither particularly large nor small as ripped music CDs go.

Read #2 and #4 again several times. Then consider for yourself what the
point of Archiving a Money file might be, especially in light of its
generally presumed benefit of reduced file size. I'll leave conclusions up
to the reader. YMMV, probably particularly if you don't have many Transfers
to/from Investment Cash Accounts, but that was mine.

"Dick Watson" <littlegr...@mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:uSF0wRan...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

[Mark Fields]

Dick,

In short, are you saying that you DID reduce your main file this way or that
it's a possible way to do it? i.e. after you tested it, it seemed to work
how you expected so it's now going to be part of your strategy to reduce
your file size?

My paychecks also have lots of splits and my file fistory is from Dec 1994
until present. My file is 44 Mb.

Mark

"Dick Watson" <littlegr...@mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in

message news:OhegMHnn...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[Dick Watson]

The report is from actual experience. I did it on a copy of my real file
just for test, not The Real Thing.

File|Archive proved a possible way to reduce, slightly, your file size. I
think the reduction is inconsequential and wasn't concerned about the size
to begin with. I was testing it to fill in gaps in the thread, not because I
want to shred my data to save a pittance of disk space. Beyond that, it did
work as advertised/expected. Besides the removed transactions, in short
look/see, I saw no difference in speed or anything else. Just a bunch (but
hardly the majority, measured as noted previously) of transaction data
missing.

The splits of the paycheck aren't the issue. The issue (fact? design?) is
that any transaction that has any element that involves an Investment Cash
account doesn't get archived. In my case, that's a LOT of data, in large
part because virtually all of my paychecks over the last fifteen years have,
amongst a dozen or more other split elements, a Transfer:[401k investment
cash account]. And I get paid weekly.

"Mark Fields" <mark_no...@siscom.net> wrote in message
news:46578f54$0$2435$4c36...@roadrunner.com...