"You will be upgraded!"

It's the New Year and Spring Fair time again, and in keeping with previous years a new version of Wessex Professional will be released (ver. 4.3.0). As usual, it will be free for existing users to download from the Wessex website and for prospective users to try out.
Of course there are improvements and additions to the program, and I'll go through these in another posting. This time I thought it would be useful to do through the upgrade procedure.

The scenario is - you've already got a previous version of Wessex Professional (WPP4) on your computer and you've either downloaded the latest version or have it on CD. Before you click that "Install" button there are a couple of things to do, just to be safe.

Firstly - to check that you will actually upgrade your program. Go to "Help" > "About" to see the existing version that you have and to make sure you're going to install a newer version.

Secondly - there are 2 important files which store your data and settings/values - "V3.mdb" (the database file) and "User.xml" (the settings/values file). These are not over-written when you install the upgrade, but they are just too important not to have a backup of.
So, run your existing program and click "File" > ""Export Database". A standard Windows dialog box prompts you to specify where the database file should be copied to (I'd go for a USB stick for preference). That's "V3.mdb" taken care of. Now go to "Setup" > "Values" and click the "Backup" button. You'll again be asked where the file should go. That was "User.xml" copied. Now, even if the unthinkable happened and the installation of the new version goes t**s up your important data is safe (my database contain work ticket records back to 2008).

Now, shut down your existing version and install the new version of the program. After installation check that all your records and labels/values are there. If they aren't, but everything else seems ok "Import" the copy you made of the database or "Restore" the copy of the settings/values.

The only problem that I have actually come across after an upgrade is that, at work I have the program start automatically when I start the computer. Sometimes the shortcut in the Windows Startup folder needs renewing. (A bit of Googling comes in handy here, as I always forget how to set it up).

Easy really?!