moving a Projects and all files (housekeeping)

[scubadude]

My LV programmer has left our company and unfortunately he has left a mess of scattered files and VIs.  I can run LV from his computer and edit the projects etc but I would like to centrally locate all the files on our server so that I can edit the programs from my computer.  When I do a 'Save As" and select "Duplicate" it seems to copy all the files to the location I specify, but when I open the project there are still files that have broken links and I get the warning " has been deleted, renamed or moved on disk".  More specifically, the 2 files that have this error are the 2 files that were on his computer's hard dive.  The others were already on the server.  When I attempt to open the file, it loads all the other supporting files and then asks me to "Find the file named..." wich is the file with the missing link.  BUT in the loading box it shows this file being loaded with a path to a location which is not where I saved the duplicate project. 

This all said, I have searched the new duplicate location and can find all the files that appear to have missing links in the project.  So my question really is, why would LV make the duplicate and not correct the links to the files?

Also, I have error triangles in front of my FieldPoint configuration files as well.  I can only assume it doesn't know where to look for these either.

If anyone can help explain this or suggest a better way to accomplish this housekeeping task than this, it would be extremely appreciated.

Tony

[Ben]

Go to his machine (and after doing a backup of the hard drive) ...

Open the project

Select Save For Previous

Select the same version as you are using

Navigate to a new fresh location and let it save.

Go to your machine and install support for Field point.

Open the project from its new location.

That should cover all but dynamic laucnched VIs that are not in the project.

Ben

[scubadude]

I did what you suggest but there was no .lvproj file created.  Shouldn't there be?

[Ben]

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@scubadude wrote:

I did what you suggest but there was no .lvproj file created.  Shouldn't there be?

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Try just using Windows Explorer to copy the old to the new folder.

Should?

I seems to rember some blah blah blah from NI saying "Why would you want it to do that?" and then I saved my gun powder for more important battles.

Ben

[scubadude]

I tried it again and found the project file burried in a dark corner of the folders.  When I opened it, I get the same problems.

[scubadude]

The issue with just using explorer is that they guy has files in multiple locations so its not like I can just copy the whole folder and get everything.  Sounds like NI suffers from the same problem other software accompanied do.  Lots of programmers, not many actual users.  To me (and probably you) its pretty obvious why one might want to do this.  I can redirect LV to the files it can't seem to find, I'm just not sure if I will get the correct version of the file and if not, this could wreak havoc.  Thanx for the ideas.  I'll keep trying.

[Mark_Yedinak]

Once resolve your curent issues I STRONGLY recommend you implement a real source code control system to manage your code. This is an absolute must for teams with multiple programmers. It is even very useful and recommended for one man shops too.

[scubadude]

Mark,

lol...  we only had one programmer, I gave that up years ago but it got dropped back in my lap when the other guy left.

When you say source code management, do you mean a software based one or just some sort of protocol so that more than just the programmer knows where everything is?

When I did it, way back when, it was all in one place.  The new guy, not so much...

[Mark_Yedinak]

I talking about an actual source code control system. Check out SVN (subversion). It is free, easy to set up and works well. It is server based which would allow multiple programmers access to the code base. Unfortunately SVN will not alleviate bad practices such as scattering files all over the place. You still need to implement some policies to instill good practices.

[Oli_Wachno]

Hi Tony,

a SCC system pays off even for only one programmer. Just having the possibility of recovering working code and differencing to the actual (just to name one feature) is worth the effort!

I'd take it this far: moving forward from "Hello World", not using a SCC ist sth like grossly negligent.

Although my statement does not solve your current problems....

Oli