can i relocate the "Data" folder> the WLD is on "C" and i like to see if it is away to move the data folder to a different drive attach to the pc my c drive is getting full.

Simple answer: no. Currently, data relocation is supported only for the Fidelity provider in WLP. Others such as Yahoo, MSN etc. do not support it.

Not so simple answer: probably, you can do it if your disk is formatted in NTFS - using symlinks. Here's what I mean:

Move the Users Directory in Windows 7

Your mileage may vary, this is totally unsupported, I haven't verified that it works etc.

Thanks Eugene,

how you can relocate data in WLP?

It's a feature of the Fidelity static provider described in WLP User Guide.

Windows Volume Mounting has been a reliable feature since the XP and Server2003 days. As Eugene pointed out, Windows7 makes mounting a volume to a specific folder (path) very easy. So, you can move your data folder to a different physical volume; the WL and Fidelity Data applications won't know the difference.

This link may also be helpful. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772671(WS.10).aspx

You'll naturally want to make a backup of the folder before proceeding!

Eugene,
Hi, hope all is well. I have a laptop and 2 PC's that I use for WLP. I noticed I spend a lot of time maintaining my datasets across all the computers, not mentioning putting excess load on Fidelity to pull all the data. Is there a way I can share datasets across all the computers? I do NOT have a share drive but I am willing to designate one PC to update my datasets and then copy the associated data location to other computers. Would you recommend this approach? I already took a loot at C:\Users\jalal\AppData\Roaming\Fidelity Investments\WealthLabPro\1.0.0.0\Data, if you bless the approach, please tell me exactly which directory I need to copy.

-Best, J

Jalal,

Copying the entire Data folder (with all its subfolders) can be recommended as a safe way of keeping a mirror image of your all your data, DataSets, Strategies, application and extensions settings, drawing objects and everything else.

Thanks Eugene, just to be on the safe side, my laptop is running windows 7 home while PC's running windows 7 ultimate, I assume this won't cause any problems?

j

QUOTE:
my laptop is running windows 7 home while PC's running windows 7 ultimate, I assume this won't cause any problems?

No in 99% cases, with these two exceptions:

1. If the PCs have vastly different regional settings (or to be precise, different decimal/currency separators), WLP at the recipient PC has a good chance of getting crashed (solution).
2. If the PCs have vastly different monitor configurations (different resolution and/or number of display devices), the recipient WLP can have some windows missing (solution).

QUOTE:
follow-up questions :)

To avoid fragmentation of discussion, let's keep this thread exclusively focused on Data Folder Relocation. Thanks.

The Link Shell Extension works great for moving the sub-folders in the Data folder to folders on an external hard drive. However, when I tried to move the whole Data folder (or any of the Fidelity data sub-folders), I got an unhandled exception when I started WealthLabPro.

My solution is to create a symbolic link to each of the data provider sub-folders (except Fidelity), relocate the Fidelity data via Data Manager and also create a symbolic link to the DataSets, Strategies and Workspaces sub-folders. This lets me take everything with me on my external hard drive, while avoiding the problems with different computers having different monitor configurations.

Is there a way to programmatically change the Data Manager > Fidelity Data > Relocate Data setting?

I keep my obsolete symbols in a different Fidelity directory so Data Manager doesn't try to update the fundamental data for them every time I update fundamental data. I would like to be able to access them via SetContext(), which obviously throws an error if they aren't in the directory specified by Relocate Data. Therefore, I would like to be able to override the Relocate Data location before calling SetContext() for these symbols.

EDITED BY EUGENE 04/14/2020:

As an added bonus, using

CODE:
Please log in to see this code.

doesn't throw an error when the symbol is in a different Fidelity directory!

QUOTE:
Is there a way to programmatically change the Data Manager > Fidelity Data > Relocate Data setting?

Sorry, this is not supported.

The installer made me do it :-)

Seems like it would just be easier if the installer asked you where to put the WealthLabPro\1.0.0.0\Data or let you set that in preferences. Then you could just put it on a share.

It would not make life easier given that many less tech savvy users still aren't aware that the files are kept in AppData. An option like that would be plain confusing for them. Not to mention that a share can be unlugged causing trouble.

Well, I'm surprised to hear that, but that seems easy to cure with both a default standard setting, and a restore default setting in the dialog or preference settings.

This should at least cure the "un-tech savvy" phone calls. And of course the User Guide (which everybody reads in it's entirety - not!) which documents its use (appropriate warnings - which are always ignored).

Of course a share either unplugged or a mapped drive disconnected could be trouble, unless of course a check was initiated by the app to ensure all requirements for data are met prior to use (@login), and alternatively when in use and data "disappears" (pop up "your dead").

If I had to guess, there are hundreds of apps (especially developer apps) that have this type of setup. A standard API likely exists in .NET.

Obviously I'm promoting this as useful alternative to any other hacks, but more so to keep my C drive from overuse and exhausting the SSD's write counts and thus it's useful life (useful being opinionated).

Assumed settings are also no good. Although it's possible to keep the data elsewhere using symlinks (see Wiki FAQ > Data), I can't recommend it for your objective of prolonging the SSD life. You have to forget about thinking that the WLP disk writes would exhaust the SSD. In reality its resource may be at least an order of magnitude higher than advertised. Check out this ongoing experiment to make sure it's mostly a myth these days:

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2F3dnews.ru%2F938764%2F

Just make cold backups periodically.

Good hack, but becomes undocumented from within the tool, and may not be user friendly under certain other catastrophic scenarios.

It does however remove support liability, which seems to be your objective? Like I mentioned before, 100's of professional applications use this simple technique of allowing the specification and location of both program and data. Serious programs examples like Cadence Design Systems, Xilinx Development tools,... I could list many more. So there must be some other difficulty that I'm not aware of that prevents you from seeing the benefit(s). It likely even doable from C# using .NET, but it doesn't belong in the trading code proper. It belongs in settings.

My objective isn't limited to SSD life, and as a hardware developer for over 40 years, I can tell you that what you link provides above, it far less than reality and is more dependent on other OOB variables. But, not a discussion for here.

Backups are not an issue here, they're done daily, automatically, double redundancy, with power fail notifications. I'm not concerned with it at all.

Many users are happily constructing their trading systems with the Rule Wizard. Especially new users who have just installed the application. Even with this simple drag and drop tool it's not always obvious for them how to do some tasks.

The pretty limited audience of "Cadence/Xilinx" power users will find their way around symlinks. A convenience requested by a power user once or twice a year on the forum is certainly not something that should make it into the installer. Even in its Advanced mode which can be inadvertently chosen by the prevailing rookie user.

A Murphys law says, If there's more than one way to do a job and one of those ways will end in disaster, then somebody will do it that way. Whoever coined it did it jokingly yet it's not. My 15 year of support tell me that to deliver a streamlined user experience and to minimize support inquiries is a good tradeoff.

Well, given that, you will most certainly have minimized support soon. :-)

I get your irony. But supporting the transition to WLD of the WLP user crowd in a nick of time is not "minimized support" in my book!