RentMaster has recently released version 9.1.  One of the changes in this version is important for anyone who is running Windows Vista, and who is not running RentMaster as an administrator.  If you are running windows Vista, but are not sure if you are running RentMaster as an administrator or not, then you should probably assume you are not.  If you are not using windows Vista, you wont have any problems.

If you are one of those people affected, your database backup may not be backing up the correct database file, as windows Vista may have created a second database file without your knowledge, and you are still backing up the original database file which does not have your current data in it.

More information can be found here.

http://www.rentmaster.co.nz/blog/2009/10/Coming-in-v91---Backup-issues-for-Vista-users.aspx

Updating to the latest version is recommended.  To update, go to the Help menu and choose Download RentMaster Update.

Version 9.1 has arrived.

You can download this update by going to the help menu inside RentMaster and choose Download RentMaster Update.  If you have any problems downloading the update automatically, you can also download it manually from www.RentMaster.co.nz/Update.aspx

Main Highlights

This is an important update for windows Vista users who are not starting RentMaster as an administrator. Database backups may not be working correctly on previous versions. Further details here http://www.rentmaster.co.nz/blog/2009/10/Coming-in-v91---Backup-issues-for-Vista-users.aspx

What else is new?

• A new 'Missed Rent' report has been added. This lists tenants who have not paid their last rent amount.
• Closed tenants previous letters can now be seen in mail merge. They are hidden by default, but are available at the bottom of the list of tenants.
• If there is a very large list of tenant names in the mail merge program, the scroll bar does not go down far enough to reach the last names.
• Extra charges can now be made to tenants who are closed but marked as open for further transactions.
• The new custom date range added to the previous versions report screen, has also been added to the cashbook screen when you press the Filter button.
• The actual location of your database file is now shown in the Maintenance/Options screen on the network tab.
• On the options screen, you can now specify both a from and to number of days range for showing expiring tenants

This is an important change for anyone who is using Windows Vista or Windows 7, and is not starting RentMaster as an administrator.  If you are not sure if you are an administrator or not, you should probably assume you are not.  All other versions of windows is not affected.

In windows Vista, Microsoft decided to help protect their users by creating something called File Virtualization (google it if you want to find out more).  This meant that lots of different locations on your computer became read only, so you could not save your files there.  One of those locations is the location where RentMaster is installed, the Program Files folder.  Because you can no longer save files there (unless you are an administrator), behind the scenes windows was creating a second copy of all the files you wanted to write to, and one of those files was the RentMaster database file.

This change did not affect RentMaster, until it came to doing a database backup.  RentMaster was not aware Windows was creating a second database file, so it was continuing to back up the original file, which in effect was not being used.  The backup would complete successfully, but it was backing up the wrong file.

In version 9.1 of RentMaster, the backup procedure now goes looking for a second database, and if it finds one, it will backup the file which has been modified most recently.

Also in version 9.1, if you go to the maintenance menu and choose Options/Networking, it will display the location where the database file is, which may be the alternative location where windows has put it.