Rename_Folders.osd

Interesting little thing that I'd love to get to the bottom of.

I transfer home from London to Languedoc three or four times a year. I have a computer in both places and sync files to a USB3 (W:) drive to D: internal disk on each machine as I go. It's a system that works well. But here's an oddity.

I run my accounts on an old copy of Microsoft Money. After syncing my files to my machine here, Money would not start, it would flash up on screen for an instant and then vanish mostly but occasionally start up. It loads with a file as normal from my D: drive. I then realised that would start, it was always when the W: drive was plugged in. On the W: drive was 'My Documents' folder, though I now run files from 'Documents' and 'My Documents' was just a left over. I deleted all the files from W:'My Documents' and Money still ran. But if I deleted the empty 'My Documents' folder, Money would not run.

So it obviously needed the W: 'My Documents' location to exist. I searched the registry and eliminated all reference for Money to W: That did nothing. I then did a 'Find' on all files containing "W;\My Documents" but none seemed relevant. Until, I found one file in AppData\Local\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\State Data\MRU\rename_folders.osd. It contained references to renaming while I was trying to locate the problem.

My Documents
XXXMy Documents
Money
XXXMoney

After copying to another name for safety, I deleted the file and ....Money started perfectly, W: drive plugged in or not, My Documents folder present or not.

I'd love to know what was going on. Why would a reference in Dopus appdata to a renamed folder prevent Money from opening? Money can't reference that folder intrinsically because it wouldn't exist on most people's installations. I'm intrigued!

I think that must be a coincidence. There is no reason Microsoft Money should care that an XML file deep in Opus's configuration folder happens to contain the word Money, unless something has gone very wrong with MS Money in conjunction with the Windows Search indexer or something. (The Windows Search indexer that comes with some versions of Windows has been known to go wrong with XML data, I guess, but not like that.)

I'd say it would be better taken up with Microsoft, but they stopped developing Money six years ago and dropped all support for it two years ago, so that would be even more futile than usual. :slight_smile:

Yes, some hopes Microsoft. I was just wondering but it is interesting that If I reinstate the file, Money won't open. if I delete it it does.

I can usually find some rationale for computer behaviour but this one defies me.