gnucash data storage

[Mike or Penny Novack]

"registry, removed all traces from MyComputer/C/Program Files, deleted 
all entries we could find in My Documents and even emptied the recycle 
bin, then did a restart of Windows XP. Once the machine had restarted, 
we again downloaded the program, and let it install. Upon completion of 
the apparently new installation,when we first opened the program, all 
his data was present."

Programs are not data.

Application preferences and settings, while they are data, are not 
ultimate user data. For example, your preference settings for your word 
processor and the documents you create with the word processor are 
different sorts of data. Unlikely to be stored in the same place.

What did your friend CALL the file that was to save his books the first 
time saved? This is NOT unlike the situation where you might have saved 
a word processing document without having remembered to give it a name! 
So now you don't KNOW what that name might be and it's lost (is it 
"untitled"? is it "default"? etc. and in which directory was it saved).

BUT -- it seems that GnuCash knows where it is? (you keep coming up with 
the set of books with the wrong accounts?) Then you can recover from 
this fairly easily. Let the books open and do a "save as" and THIS TIME 
take a note of the name and the directory you choose to put that in. You 
are going to help him with this using your Linux computer, that location 
could well be on a USB flash drive (thumb). You might not know where the 
old copy is or what called but you know the name/path of this one. You 
open, fix his chart of accounts (account structure) and then save back. 
He can then copy this set of books wherever he pleases. Next opening of 
GnuCash he chooses to open it instead of his "default" (original) set of 
books and from then on.

Michael