The MarketDelta Blog

Recently I had the experience of talking with a customer who had uninstalled and then reinstalled MarketDelta. They were under the impression that the default database backup folder located at C:Program FilesMktDeltaData_fBackup_f would not be deleted if they uninstalled. Unfortunately this is not the case and when the software is uninstalled, ALL data, charts, settings, and program files go away. Needless to say the user was not happy to find out everything was gone after putting hours and hours into building his charts and layouts.

Because of this, it made sense to publish some “best practices” for managing your personal settings. Keep in mind that unless you are storing lots and lots of tick data, it is easy to just re-download the historical data that may be lost in the event of a crash or uninstall. Most of the data vendors that MarketDelta supports provide plenty of data to get you back up and running quickly so that you hardly miss a trade.

Best Practice #1 – Save Chart and Layout Definition Files
Chart definitions and layout definitions are files that contain all the specific details of a particular chart or layout. They are text (.txt) files. They can be easily stored, shared, named, exported, and imported. Many people post charts to www.charthub.com and share the definition of the file they posted. In fact, this is a very good step 1. Share your charts up to charthub.com and give them a name (maybe your initials) that you can easily search on if needed at a later time. I know we have users who have hundreds of charts stored on the site.

Alternatively, you can File | Export | Chart Definition and save the file OUTSIDE the Mktdleta folder. Save them to My Documents or to a USB drive. Maybe even email them to yourself. You can do the same with your layout definitions. These contain all the charts in a particular layout. The point is to do this from time to time if you make significant changes to your charts. Otherwise, just doing it once after building your charts should be adequate.

Best Practice #2 – Specify the Backup_f to Save Elsewhere
By default the database backup file is stored inside the MktDelta folder in Program Files (C:Program Filesmktdeltadata_f) for Windows XP, or C:UsersYourNamemktdelta for Vista and Windows 7 users. This archive contains ALL your settings, data, and charts within the software. Some users will even make a backup of the backup and just archive it somewhere in case the whole hard drive where to go out.
It is easy to change the backup location to be somewhere outside the MktDelta folder. To change the file path do the following:

For more detailed information on backup and recovery, see the Knowledge Base and search “backup”.