MARC Report and new computers

This page tries to help with the most common questions users face when they receive a new computer and want to get MARC Report running on it, or want to transfer a copy of MARC Report from one computer to another.

There are two important caveats¹⁾ that we want to stress, as between them they cover almost all support questions on this topic:

1. Do not copy the program itself from one PC to another
2. Do not copy the options file (marcreport.ini) from one PC to another

Either of the above prohibitions will create quite a few headaches, both for you, in trying to get the program to run, and for anyone trying to figure out what is going on when you ask for help.

Instead, follow the instructions here as though you were doing an installation on your new computer.

The rest of this article will cover how to move local customizations of the software from your old PC to your new one.

All files and tables that can be customized by the user are stored in the 'Options' folder in your 'My Documents\MarcReport' directory.

Note that the location of 'My Documents' or 'Documents' varies greatly from one windows environment to another. To help you find the windows path for this folder, follow these steps:

1. start MARC Report
2. go to the Help menu
3. select 'Tech Support info'
4. Find the line labeled: “Options Folder”

The path listed there will point to the options folder for the program.

The type of customizations that can be preserved are any changes to the default sets (thus creating a new set) for the following: Cataloging Checks, Mandatory Fields, Local Subjects, Local Validation, Cancelled Messages, MARC Review cataloging checks, MARC Review saved reviews, and MARC Global saved reviews and autoreviews.

1. If you have customized the program, copy the complete contents of this 'options' folder to a location that you will have access to on your new machine. This can be a network folder, a floppy drive, a flash drive, etc.

2. Once MARC Report is installed on your new computer, start the program, and then close it. ²⁾

3. After the program has been run once (or more), copy the 'options' folder from your old machine to your new machine, being sure to replace the contents when prompted by windows.

Many users have invested time in constructing their edit macros. To move your macros, and other .ini settings to the new computer, follow these steps.

On the old computer:

• Start MARC Report
• At the bottom of the 'Options' menu, select 'Enable option profiles'
• Open any 'Options' page (like 'Batch Reports', 'Cataloging Checks', etc.)
• Select 'File|Save As'
• Enter a name you will remember (like 'old computer settings')
• Close the options
• Close MARC Report
• Goto your 'MarcReport' folder (usually found in 'My Documents' or 'Documents')
• Open the 'Profiles' folder
• Find that file that you entered above (ie. 'old computer settings')
• Copy that file to somewhere you can access it on your new computer

On the new computer

• After MARC Report is installed and has run once
• Start MARC Report again
• At the bottom of the 'Options' menu, select 'Enable option profiles'
• At the bottom of the 'Options' menu, select 'Import a profile'
• Find the file that you saved above (ie. 'old computer settings') and select it
• Close MARC Report

Finally, start MARC Report again, goto the Options menu and use 'Change profile' to select the profile from your old computer. You should be back in business.

Like the caveat above for the marcreport.ini file, its also important here not to copy a profile from one computer to another. Instead, use the 'Import' tool, which provides an essential service: it checks all of the settings in the .ini that might change from one computer to another (settings that contain names of folders, etc.) and modifies them to match those of the current environment.

Make sure the program is not running when you copy files.

Do not copy any files from the top folder–'Documents\MarcReport'–on your old computer to your new computer–doing so will cause the program to fail on the new computer³⁾.

Do not copy any version of the 'marcreport.ini' file from the old computer to the new computer–same result as above. This file is located in the 'Documents\MarcReport' folder.

The following subdirectories of 'Documents\MarcReport' may contain data that you want to carry forward to your new computer. Please read through this list and decide if any of these apply to your setup and if copying is appropriate.

• Edit–potential location for edit results; usually empty (unless the Edit Option 'Always save results to this directory' is set)

• Images–default location for pictures; you may have moved pictures here that you want the program to use.

• Lists–a storage area for files containing the various code lists used during validation

• Marc–location of the test MARC file distributed with the program; usually contains only the one file unless you are using it as the 'Marc Search path'.

• Options–as noted above, this is the location of all tables, 'sets', reviews, etc. that you have customized, as well as backups of these files

• Profiles–files in this folder should not be copied from one computer to another; we recommend profiles be re-created on the new computer; but see “Importing options” below for a solution.

• Reports–default location for reports; usually empty unless you are using it for your 'Results folder'

• Stylesheets–location of the .xsl files used to 'transform' xml serializations

• Templates–location of the new record template files distributed with the program. (Does not need to be copied over unless you have created your own templates).

• Work–default work folder; typically empty since version 2.31, when all work files for Edit sessions were re-located to the non-roaming Application Data folder

Here is a screenshot of the folders we are talking about above (from Windows 7). Regardless of the location of the 'Documents' folder, the contents of the 'MarcReport' folder will be very similar: