I purchased Rootsmagic 9 and converted my databases from RM8 to RM9 but the backups and files are still in a folder that says Roots8. Is that because I didn’t select a new folder to store the files in when I switched? Can I just change the folder name? What should I do?
I would expect so.
You can change the folder name but after you do so, you will need to reopen your family tree from that new folder.
The “File > Open an Existing RootsMagic File” will also show the old Roots8 folder, opening the file in this folder will display a message saying the “file not found” and this link will be removed. Nice.
Other things to consider are in Settings > Folder Settings. You can change the folder names here from Roots8 to your new data folder, as well as backup folder etc.
The other issue you will come across by changing your folder name from Roots8 is that your media links will point to the old folder name. No problem; use the tools > fix broken links and select the folder of where you media is now stored. The “Search for missing files” button will relink them to your new folder.
An alternate idea is to copy your Roots8 to another folder and then do the above options. The advantage of this more conservative approach is if something is not quite right, you still have your original Roots8 folder and sub-folders as they were.
I would recommend using a generic folder name, maybe just RootsMagic, unless you intend to have different versions running.
The RM8 to RM9 conversion can be a little more subtle than it sounds. That’s because the conversion from RM8 to RM9 converts your RM8 database in place into being an RM9 database. It does not import the old RM8 database into a new RM9 database while leaving the old RM8 database in place. So if all you do is open your old RM8 database with RM9, you will no longer have your old RM8 database as a backup. And your files will all still be where they were for RM8. And you cannot open your RM9 database from RM8.
A best practice is probably to create a new set of folders for RM9, all of which are initially empty. Then copy your RM8 database to the RM9 folders. It it contains something like “RM8” somewhere in the name, you probably should rename the database to say RM9 instead of RM8. It if contains something like SmithFamilyHistory, then you can just leave the name the same without creating any confusion.
As far as the rest of your files and folders, it depends on how you had things set up in RM8. Did you have media files? If so, where are they. Did you have backup files? (it sounds like you did). If so, where are they? Etc. Part of the reason I’m asking is that if you had media files and if they were in the RM8 folders and if you rename the RM8 folders to RM9, then all your media links will be broken. They are easy to fix, but the best way to fix them depends on exactly where and how your stored them as far as folder names and folder locations.
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Ok. Thanks thejerrybryan and teddy. I will take your advice and move them to a new folder. At this point we don’t have multimedia files, so that is not an issue.
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