In What Folder Are Profiles Saved ??

[M.J. Post]

I wanted to save an old profile (*.phd) before changing some parameters, by renaming it.  I tried looking for it under Manage Profiles  (tab down) "import" or "export".  I got directed to the PhD folder under Documents, but no such files (*.phd) existed there.  So I did a total PC search for any *.phd file, and nothing showed up.  Do they actually exist somewhere??

Unfortunately I could not get out of the Advanced Setting Dialog to rename my new profile without resetting my old profile, so I lost it!  I'm hoping I remembered the old settings so I can restore them if the new settings are bad.  

Please tell me where all my profiles are saved, so I can rename them if desired.  Thanks!

M,J. Post

Boulder, CO.

[bw_m...@earthlink.net]

The profiles are stored in the registry on Windows, not in the file system.  If you want to rename an existing profile, you use the ‘Rename’ menu item in the Manage Profiles pull-down.  If you want to copy profiles into the file system, you do an ‘export’.  If you want to import a profile from the file system, you do an ‘import’. If you were in the Advanced Settings dialog, you could have clicked on ‘Cancel’ and nothing would change. 

 

Bruce

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[M.J. Post]

OK, all makes sense now, especially why my PC-wide search failed.  

I suppose putting profiles in the registry made sense years ago, but it seems illogical with today's conventions that most apps use - saving such files to a folder inside Documents or Program (x86) folders.

Thanks for the quick response!

MJ

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[bw_m...@earthlink.net]

The registry is still a good solution for a hierarchical storage system that is protected from users who are flailing around on their systems.  Take a look at your registry and see if you think it’s not used much anymore. <g>

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[M.J. Post]

I apologize for implying I know much about programming and/or best practices.  I certainly do not, and appreciate everyone's efforts in your shop

in providing us with a great guiding software package!  MJP

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[Dale Ghent]

The Registry may be okay in general, but it's too opaque to its detriment these days. The downside of it means that transferring or recovering profiles and settings becomes much tougher to do without the app itself being available to import/export them from the Registry in an orderly manner, which also necessitates that the process be interactive rather than automatic through file syncing or file backup apps. It's a pain point I've ran into when trying to keep equipment profiles synced between main and backup imaging PCs, for example. I just can't robocopy or rsync a folder and be done with it; I must manually export the profiles, copy the resulting files over to my backup system, and manually import them there. Restoring profiles from a crashed PC also becomes much more onerous as a result.

Windows has proper facilities for applications to store their own configuration and metadata now, so I think it should be considered with the Registry minimally relied upon. We've been doing this with NINA since the beginning, using the AppData system to store profiles and other state information, and it has worked well.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/006501d9d85d%24109293e0%2431b7bba0%24%40earthlink.net.

[Steve]

Hi

If you don't like PHD2 using the windows registry, simply use the Linux version. There, profiles -and everything else- is available to the user via the regular file system.

Cheers and HTH

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/1268199C-20E0-4F41-9A73-D799936A3EA9%40elemental.org.

[bw_m...@earthlink.net]

Dale, a critical point you're missing is that PHD2 is cross-platform - unlike NINA. As a result, it uses third-party libraries for cross-platform functionality including things like a reliable hierarchical storage system. In this case, the platform uses the Registry on Windows, the file system on Linux, and I-don't-know on Macintosh. Since you're a programmer, you can write your own utility to migrate the PHD2 profiles in and out of the Registry to do whatever you think you need to do.

-----Original Message-----
From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com <open-phd...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Dale Ghent
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2023 8:15 AM
To: open-phd...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] In What Folder Are Profiles Saved ??


The Registry may be okay in general, but it's too opaque to its detriment these days. The downside of it means that transferring or recovering profiles and settings becomes much tougher to do without the app itself being available to import/export them from the Registry in an orderly manner, which also necessitates that the process be interactive rather than automatic through file syncing or file backup apps. It's a pain point I've ran into when trying to keep equipment profiles synced between main and backup imaging PCs, for example. I just can't robocopy or rsync a folder and be done with it; I must manually export the profiles, copy the resulting files over to my backup system, and manually import them there. Restoring profiles from a crashed PC also becomes much more onerous as a result.

Windows has proper facilities for applications to store their own configuration and metadata now, so I think it should be considered with the Registry minimally relied upon. We've been doing this with NINA since the beginning, using the AppData system to store profiles and other state information, and it has worked well.

> On Aug 26, 2023, at 16:36, bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> The registry is still a good solution for a hierarchical storage
> system that is protected from users who are flailing around on their
> systems. Take a look at your registry and see if you think it’s not
> used much anymore. <g> Bruce
> From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com
> <open-phd...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of M.J. Post
> Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2023 12:45 PM
> To: open-phd...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] In What Folder Are Profiles Saved ??
> OK, all makes sense now, especially why my PC-wide search failed.
> I suppose putting profiles in the registry made sense years ago, but it seems illogical with today's conventions that most apps use - saving such files to a folder inside Documents or Program (x86) folders.
> Thanks for the quick response!
> MJ

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/1268199C-20E0-4F41-9A73-D799936A3EA9%40elemental.org.

[Dale Ghent]

Sure, and the registry is by far not the only app configuration storage facility in Windows. Instead of Windows PHD2 having its current code to maintain configurations in the registry, it would instead use the facilities provided by standard Windows APIs to manage configurations (as files) under the user's AppData folder.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/001801d9d9e0%247d19e110%24774da330%24%40earthlink.net.